


Our Remains

by ready_to_kick_some_ass



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blackmail, CryoFitz, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Kidnapping, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post Season 5, Psychological Trauma, Season 6 Speculation, Suicidal Thoughts, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Therapy, Torture, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ready_to_kick_some_ass/pseuds/ready_to_kick_some_ass
Summary: The world is saved. The team tries to deal with the aftermaths. After everything they've been through, after they lost too much and were hurt too badly, it's not always easy to hold the pieces together. They try anyway.Fitz wakes up in a world he doesn't understand. After an incident with Daisy he makes a difficult, yet important decision. It leads him back to Scotland, where he faces unexpected challenges.Meanwhile, Daisy and Jemma try to help each other dealing with what they've been through, and rediscover their friendship.May is in the middle of it all, still mourning Phil but trying to hide it with being the strong anchor the team needs.





	1. Breaking Apart

Fitz can't sleep.  
  
He wanders slowly through the narrow passageways of Enoch's ship, past big windows that allow a glimpse at the countless wonders of the universe. But Fitz doesn't even cast a glance at the beauty that lies before him in seemingly infinite expanse. He feels restless and deeply exhausted at the same time. Detached from his body. Torn.  
  
Since he woke up three days ago, since he opened his eyes, saw Jemma's tear-wet eyes in front of him and didn't _understand_ , it seems to him that the walls of his mind are crumbling. Like they did in the prison cell. But back then he had something that distracted him. Something that urged him on, helping him to focus.

He had a mission. The mission to find Jemma and the team. To save them. But now, no one has to be saved anymore. Only himself, apparently.  
  
Fitz has never been good at saving himself.  
  
He stops and leans back against the wall for a moment, sighing. He closes his eyes. Heavy fatigue slowly creeps into every cell of his body.  
  
But sleep is out of reach now.

An exhausting  pattern has developed over the last three days. He lays sleepless beside Jemma, pursued by threatening thoughts and pictures. Haunted by Jemma's words. _You died, Fitz._

 _You died._  
  
Guilt crushes him. Along with confusion and self-hatred. He left Jemma alone. No not really _him_ , but another version of him. It's absurd. It feels wrong. And he knows somehow, that there's more. A lot more.  
  
He sees it in her eyes, where he misses a certain aspect of her familiar warmth. _Later_ , she said, _I'll tell you everything later. When we ... when you're ready, alright?  
_  
_Everything._ What is "everything"? The vague ideas he has form into horrendous pictures in his thoughts and dreams.

His restless mind torments him until he falls asleep for a few hours out of sheer exhaustion. But this kind of sleep brings no relief.

He always wakes up sometime, startled from the images of a nightmare, and can't fall back asleep. He stares at Jemma, who looks tired even in her sleep, and knows he has a problem. But what's the solution to it?  
  
Fitz opens his eyes again and walks on. He walks back and forth, like he did in the prison cell. And this ship is in fact just another kind of prison, isn't it. One that is floating in the middle of nowhere. There's no way to escape. There's only the walls of the ship, his treacherous mind and the half-sympathetic, half-worried looks of the team and - Jemma. Jemma, who is mourning. Jemma, who struggles to smile while she's clearly at the edge of falling apart. Jemma, who's wearing a wedding ring and is in possession of countless memories Fitz doesn't share with her, altough he should.  
  
Jemma.  
  
Sharp pain burns in his heart, together with his endless love for her and it's too much.  
  
He sighs, pressing a fist against his forehead in frustration. What's the solution …  
  
As Fitz passes Daisy's bunk, he suddenly hears a strangled whimper. He stops in surprise. The door is not closed. It's ajar.And the next moment he hears a mumbled, but well audible, "No" from inside.  
  
Fitz swallows. Daisy seems to have a nightmare. A bad one. His stomach aches as he hears another whimper, louder this time. The urge to help her is strong in his heart.  
  
After a moment's hesitation, he enters the room.  
  
He can see Daisy lying huddled on the bed, the blanket a tangled mess around her. Suddenly she rolls herself violently to the side. The mattress creaks quietly under her weight.  
  
Fitz walks to the bed. He remembers that Jemma told him that Daisy fought against Talbot alone when he somehow became a supervillain named Graviton. It must have been scary for Daisy. Maybe she dreams about this battle. She is so strong. But also very sensitive. Fitz knows that. Knows that from the things they went through together. She carries demons around with her - exactly like him.  
  
Daisy moans quietly in her sleep. Her face is a mask of fear.  
  
Fitz looks down at her and he can't take it anymore. He knows people are saying you shouldn't wake someone up in the middle of a nightmare ... but God, how often would he have preferred himself to be pulled out of the labyrinth of his dream worlds, where ghosts and demons lurk behind every corner?  
  
He reaches out and carefully touches her shoulder. He shakes her slightly. "Daisy," he says gently. "Daisy, wake up. It's just a dream … You're safe."  
  
The next moment Daisy opens her eyes. She blinks a few times into the void. Her mouth opens slightly.  
  
"Daisy," Fitz says again.

Her eyes widen at the sound of his voice. She looks up at him. Fitz smiles tentatively.  
  
And then everything happens in a terrifying blur.  
  
Daisy screams. Loud and high-pitched. It's a scream of pure fear.  
  
Fitz staggers back a step, startled. "Daisy, what ..." He doesn't finish the sentence.  
  
Daisy raises a hand. And Fitz loses the ground under his feet as he flies backwards. He is thrown against the wall behind him hard, screaming out as a sharp pain rushes through his head. He lands on the ground with a dull sound. He presses a hand against the back of his head and moans.  
  
Daisy stares at him, breathing heavily. Something in her eyes changes. She gasps in shock and presses both hands over her mouth.

Suddenly the light goes on, blindingly bright.  
  
"What's going on?" May stands before them, an Icer loosely in her hand, her mouth a grim, thin line. She looks from Daisy on the bed to Fitz on the floor. Her eyes widen slightly.  
  
Jemma appears behind her. She puts a hand over her mouth.  
  
It's silent for a moment, except for Daisy's shallow, hectic breaths.  
  
Fitz looks from her to May to Jemma and back. He doesn't understand. He takes his hand off his throbbing head, blinking as he sees blood on his fingers.  
  
May clears her throat. "Jemma. Take care of Fitz," she says curtly, while already rushing to Daisy.  
  
Jemma nods, going to Fitz hastily. She takes his hand. "Come on," she says softly. "I have to take a look at your head."

Fitz lets her pull him on his feet and moans as the room sways slightly in front of his eyes. He walks slowly with Jemma to the door and throws a last glance at Daisy, who allows May to pull her into a hug. In her eyes, he sees an intense mixture of emotions. Shock, guilt, suffering, sadness ... But there's also something else. There's fear. A bottomless, open, desperate fear.

And it shatters Fitz's heart.  
  
*  
  
Jemma cleans the laceration on Fitz's head and bandages him.  
  
Then she sits down in front of him. She takes his hand, squeezing it lightly. And she tells him what happened.  
  
He listens to her. And slowly starts to understand.  
  
This is "Everything". "Everything" she wanted to tell him. It's so much worse than all the images from his worst nightmares.  
  
"I'm sorry Fitz. I thought ... I wanted to tell you, but ... I didn't want you to be overwhelmed ..."  
  
Fitz looks at his hand, which is trembling slightly. Jemma's stammer hardly reaches him. There's a dull rushing in his ears. He feels sick.  
  
So it's true. What he feared in solitary confinement is true. He's losing his mind.  
  
"We're going to get through this, Fitz. It ... Something like this doesn't have to happen again. It _won't_ happen again. The future isn't predetermined. We ... we made a terrible mistake. We left you alone. And I'm sorry. So sorry ... but now," she rubs her thumb over his heated skin. Tears are on her cheeks. "Now we are here. I'm here for you. I promise you, we will ... "  
  
_A mistake._

 _We made a mistake …  
_  
Fitz sees Jemma's mouth moving. But he can't hear her words anymore. It's too much. The truth crushes him. Suffocates him.  
  
He's like a ticking time bomb. A problem that needs to be solved. A threat that needs to be eliminated. Does the team think about him like this? Does _Jemma_ think about him this way? And Daisy?  
  
For Daisy, he realizes, he's a face from her nightmares.  
  
_Oh God …_  
  
The next moment Fitz gets up and hurries to the bathroom. He falls to the floor in front of the toilet, grabbing the toilet bowl with both hands, vomiting several times.  
  
It hurts.  
  
Soon nothing more comes except bitter bile. His throat burns and beads of sweat run down his forehead.  
  
He sinks to the ground and buries both hands in his hair, pulling on it. Hard.  
  
A nightmare. He's a nightmare ...  
  
Suddenly Jemma is in front of him. She puts a trembling hand on his shoulder, breathing his name. "Fitz ..."  
  
She pulls him in her arms. Holding him while he's sobbing.  
  
While he is breaking apart.  
  
*  
  
May says nothing while Daisy clings to her, trembling, sobbing helplessly. She just holds her and waits.  
  
When the tears finally stop, she asks softly, "Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
Daisy looks at her, her eyes wide open and desperate. She swallows. "I ... I didn't want this. I ... I didn't want to hurt Fitz, "she stammers, wiping the tears from her face. "He ... I saw _him_. The Doctor. In my nightmare." She shudders. "And when I opened my eyes _he_ was there - no, not _him_ , it was Fitz, but ... somehow ... Oh God, May, what happened?"

May looks at her sadly, shaking her head. "Listen. You don't have to feel guilty. Your fear is valid and your reaction is understandable. You have been through a lot. And you haven't processed it yet. We haven't even started to process things. Neither you, nor anyone else on this ship. We all carry loads with us. It's terribly unfair. But it still happened. Now we have to find a way to deal with it," she says quietly as she runs a hand through Daisy's hair. "But you're not alone. We will do this together."  
  
Daisy closes her eyes, leaning into May's touch. "I just want my family back," she says quietly, desperately. "I want it back. As it was."  
  
"We're still a family," May says, pulling Daisy closer to her chest. "Our family ... it may not be perfect, it might be fragmented and damaged, but it's still there. And we will work on it. I promise."  
  
Daisy wraps her arms around her and May closes her eyes. Her own pain burns in her heart along with her grief. Her grief for everything they have lost.

*

When they finally arrive on earth, it seems like everyone is relieved to have more space. To be more able to avoid each other. They move through the Lighthouse like ghosts. Together alone.  
  
Fitz looks Jemma in the eye and sees sadness.  
  
He looks Mack in the eye and sees guilt.  
  
He looks Daisy in the eye and sees fear.  
  
He looks May in the eye and sees ... a grim determination that doesn't quite reach him.  
  
He looks himself in the eyes in the mirror and sees chaos. He looks again and discovers a solution.  
  
"I have to leave," Fitz whispers to himself. And nods.  
  
*  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
Fitz raises his head and sees May, standing in the doorway, staring at him blankly.  
  
He swallows, pointing to the almost full suitcase on the bed. "I'm leaving."  
  
May crosses her arms over her chest. "Where to?"

"To Scotland. To my mother. She has a friend who works as a therapist. She has ... um ... she has helped us a lot in the past. I'm going to talk to her. Going to ask her what I'm supposed to do," Fitz explains calmly as he puts some neatly folded shirts into the suitcase, closing it after one last searching glance.  
  
May raises an eyebrow. She shifts her weight. The small gesture reveals her concern. "Are you sure that …"  
  
Fitz looks at her and something in his eyes silences her. "Don't try to hold me back, May. Not this time," he says softly. "I made a decision. I want you - and the team - to accept it."  
  
"What about Simmons?" May asks. "She just found you. Now she is supposed to lose you again?"  
  
For a moment, a shadow flits over Fitz's eyes. But he shakes his head. "She will ... she has to understand. May, she's still mourning ... she's mourning her husband. How is she supposed to deal with her grief while I'm near her? I remind her of all her suffering. And I notice that she is desperate but tries to not show it. All those forced smiles. All these tiring talks. What's the point of it? Are we supposed to suffer in silence until the next disaster comes? I can't do this anymore. I can't just wait. I have to do something."  
  
"She loves you. You know that," May says quietly. "Just as you know that you will always be part of this family. We take care of each other. We find solutions."  
  
"I know," Fitz says and tears shimmer in his eyes. "But I have to go. I have to find the solution myself. Because ... because I can't live with the thought that I could hurt any of you. I will do everything possible to prevent it. If I have to, I will even admit myself into a psych ward. I will prevent that I'm to blame for the pain of others. No matter what it takes. I'm not ... I'm not _this_ man."  
  
May looks at him. And he knows she understands.  
  
Nevertheless, he once more emphatically says, "I have to go."  
  
May sighs. It sounds resigned. "Fine. But I won't let you go alone. I'm going with you until I know you're safe," she says coolly. The expression in her eyes doesn't allow  contradiction.  
  
Fitz smiles weakly. "Okay."  
  
"And I want you to talk to Simmons before we leave," May adds more gently.  
  
Fitz looks aside. "May ..."  
  
"Talk to her. Don't leave without saying goodbye. Not this time."  
  
Fitz swallows. But he nods. "Okay."

*

Jemma is crying.  
  
But she hugs him and whispers, "It's okay."  
  
Fitz pulls her close and puts his chin on her head. He breathes in her familiar smell. "I'm sorry. If ... if you can wait ..."  
  
"Always," Jemma breaths. "Always, Fitz."  
  
He nods. Tears are burning in his own eyes. He eases away from Jemma so he can look her in the eye. "You have to do something for me," he says seriously. "You have to ... you have to promise me that you will allow yourself to get help. That you will allow the team to support you. You don't have to pretend that you're fine, Jemma. It's okay to not be okay. I want you to be better. So please, talk to the team about your feelings. Talk to them about your fears. Are you going to do that?"  
  
Jemma looks at him openly and nods. "Yes. I will. I promise."  
  
Fitz swallows. "Okay."  
  
He hesitates. Then he presses a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I love you," he says.  
  
"I love you too," Jemma whispers, putting a warm hand on his cheek. "Forever."  
  
*  
  
May looks from the misty darkness in front of her to Fitz sitting in the seat next to her, slumped and fast asleep. His face is relaxed. His mouth slightly open.  
  
He looks painfully young. Innocent.  
  
Involuntarily, she remembers the day she saw him die. The pain is still burning deep in her heart. Pain and the desperate feeling of helplessness.  
  
They lost so much ...  
  
Her family broke apart in front of her eyes. First Fitz. Then Phil.  
  
Phil ...  
  
It hurts to think about him. But she lets the pain come anyway. Because he won't disappear from her thoughts. Never.  
  
_I love you_ , he'd whispered under the palm trees. Under the bright blue skye and under the stars. _I love you._  
  
May sighs softly. She involuntarily touches her right cheek where he'd kissed her, the night before ...  
  
She shakes her head gently. Not now. Later, she will cry again. Will let the pain out. But not now.  
  
Fitz next to her suddenly moves slightly. He moans quietly and mutters something inaudible.  
  
May gets up and fetches a blanket. She lays it carefully over Fitz, pulling it up to his chin.  
  
"I'm sorry," Fitz mumbles suddenly. These words are very much audible. And they hurt May's heart.  
  
Even in his sleep, the guilt doesn't let him go.  
  
May runs a hand through his hair, hoping it gives him some comfort. She can't help but to wonder if the suffering will end someday. Whether there will eventually be light in all the shadows. She hopes so. She really does.  
  
She sits down again, staring into the darkness Zephyr One flies through evenly. There's silent hope in her heart, conflicting with pain and sadness.  
  
Hope is all they have left now.


	2. If You Change Your Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter:  
> \- Implied/Referenced Child Abuse and Domestic Violence.  
> \- Mentions of severe illness (Cancer)
> 
> Please don't hate me. Sometimes my writing takes directions that surprise/shock myself :3  
> But I promise all will be fine. Somehow.

Daisy is sitting on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, her head hidden in her hands. She feels numb.   


Fitz is gone.

He took his Zephyr and flew away to Scotland. Without saying goodbye to her. 

Daisy nervously shoves her index finger into her mouth and begins to nibble on the nail. An old habit from her time in orphanage.

The nuns had a remedy for it back then.  A bitter liquid that made her tongue feel furred.

There are no nuns here and no bitter liquid. There is only Daisy and the guilt, gnawing at her, filling her with a desperate, painful void. Altough everyone keeps telling her she shouldn't feel guilty, she can't fight it.

She hurt Fitz. He just wanted to help her and she hurt him.

She doesn't get the images of Fitz on the floor out of her head ... They mix in a cruel way with the memories of The Doctor and his scalpel.

It's a never-ending vicious circle.

When she closes her eyes, she sees either the cold, indifferent face of The Doctor hovering threateningly above her, or Fitz's wide-open, confused eyes and his trembling hand stained with his own blood.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

Will it ever stop hurting? Will she ever stop being scared or desperate? She doesn't know. And so she feels like she's falling endlessly into a black abyss of desperation ...

Suddenly a soft voice from the door pulls her out of her thoughts.  
  
"Hey."

Daisy looks up in surprise.

Jemma stands in front of her.  Her eyes are bloodshot from tears and her skin pale from sleep deprivation.  But her tentative smile is warm. "Is everything alright?"

Daisy swallows. "No," she says honestly, tears burning in her eyes.  "Nothing is alright."

Jemma nods.  She doesn't seem surprised. She sits down next to Daisy on the bed, putting her hands loosely in her lap and sighs. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asks softly.

Daisy hesitates. A part of her wants to talk with someone so desperately that it hurts. But another part of her warns her to not add her pain to Jemma's own ...

"I think it's better if you talk about it," Jemma says, throwing her a knowing look.  "It's better to let it out.  Otherwise it will be too much at some point.  We should all talk more to each other." She stares down at her hands playing idly with each other and swallows.

Daisy nods, finally saying helplessly, "I can't stop thinking of it. I can't stop feeling terrible for what happened to Fitz.  He ... He wasn't the one who hurt me back then.  He didn't even know about what happened.  And I ... I hurt him.  I didn't want that.  I want ... I want everything to be like it used to.  I want us to be like a family again.  But how is that supposed to work when I'm scared of him and he's gone because he thinks I hate him?"

 

 

"Oh Daisy." Jemma puts a warm hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly.  "I'm so sorry ... Fitz doesn't think you hate him.  He left because everything is too much right now. He's overwhelmed and doesn't want anyone to be hurt. He wants to do something about his mental health problems. It hurts that he's gone, but I feel that it's the right decision. He loves you, Daisy ... I'm sure when he's feeling better, and you do too, then you can talk to each other and start trusting again."

"Do you really think so?" Daisy asks hopefully and wipes the tears out of the corner of her eyes.

"Yes," Jemma says, smiling at her. 

Daisy hopes she's right. She has always seen Fitz like a brother. She doesn't want to lose that. Doesn't want to lose what she has found in the team ...

For a moment, she and Jemma sit silently side by side. Outside, the birds sing happily about the warm summer day.

"Some distraction would do us some good," Jemma says suddenly.

"Yes it definitely would," Daisy answers, sighing.  "But what could we do? Please don't say playing monopoly, ugh. Never again. I'm still sure someone was close to being murdered ..."

"No, but we could go out.  Get some fresh air.  It's really warm. We could go to the village and eat some ice cream," Jemma suggests.

Daisy tilts her head. "Ice cream?" She asks surprised. Somehow the idea sounds absurd. Absurdly normal. And yet wonderful.

"Yes," Jemma smiles weakly.  "Ice Cream. Or do you have any other plans for today?"

Daisy shakes her head.  "No." She stands up, relieved at the prospect of distraction.  "Let's go.  I can't stand being in this gloomy bunker anymore ..."

~

"So many flavours!" Daisy says in astonishment, when they are at the ice cream shop, biting her lip.  "I haven't eaten ice cream for ages.  How am I supposed to know what tastes good?  How am I supposed to choose one flavour?!"

Jemma chuckles.  "Then don't choose only one.  Take what you want to try."

Daisy stares at her.  "For real?"

Jemma shrugs.  "Why not.  I think we deserve good things.  Screw money.  Screw worries.  Let's eat as much ice cream as we want."

Daisy laughs, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.  "Okay."

In the end, they choose eight scoops, plus whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and marshmallows on top. They eat slowly and almost devoutly while enjoying the view of the calm sea in front of them.

"It's so peaceful here," Daisy says softly.  "As if everything was fine.  It's nice, somehow.  Nice to think that things can be okay."

"Yes," Jemma says quietly in agreement.

They look at each other, smiling involuntarily. At that moment, they feel warm hope dispelling the darkness of their thoughts, like the sun dispels rain clouds. 

 

*

 

"That's it," Fitz says nervously, playing with his hands restlessly. 

May nods, looking at the little house in front of them.  Red bricks. Big windows. A small but neat garden.  
It seems calm.  Cozy.

They slowly walk to the front door.

Fitz raises his hand uncertainly and lets it sink again after a second.

May looks at him questioningly.

Fitz swallows. "It's ….  It's been a long time," he says softly.

May smiles understandingly. "She'll be happy to see you," she says encouragingly.

Fitz nods, breathing in deeply several times. Finally he raises his hand again and taps timidly on the door. He hastily takes a step back, involuntarily holding his breath in his tension.

He and May wait in silence for a moment.

Soon there are steps to be heard from within. The door opens.

And then they both gasp in shocked surprise.

The man who opens the door for Fitz and May occasionally haunts both of them in their nightmares.

For May he is connected to her false life in the Framework. Connected to her memories of a system that forced her to do awful things.  She stares at the man and feels unreal for a moment.  Feels for a moment as if she were back there ... It's horrifying. 

For Fitz, the man is connected to the sensation of rejection, fear and the feeling of never being enough. For The Doctor in him, however, the man before him is associated with the feeling of careful pride and strange, submissive love mixed with underlying ever-present fear. And he stirs uneasily in a corner of Fitz's fragile mind.

Alistair Fitz slightly tilts his head, his cold eyes eyeing Fitz, then fleetingly May. Finally, the corners of his mouth pull up into a cheerless smile. "Leopold.  Son.  It's been a long time. You got tall, " he says calmly.

Fitz opens his mouth, but he finds no words. The shock is an icy lump in his throat.

Alistair frowns. "I see. Still not a great speaker ..." His voice sounds familiarly disappointed.

Fitz closes his eyes for a moment. He tries to collect himself. Trys to get through the veil of anxiety and unreality, which suddenly threatens to overwhelm him.

Finally he opens his eyes again and clears his throat. "Where is my mother?" He asks, raising his chin.

Alistair sighs. "Unfortunately I have to tell you that she's in hospital."

Fitz swallows hard. His stomach drops. "What ... Is she ... did she have an accident?"

Alistair shakes his head. "It's cancer," he says curtly.  "Fortunately still in the early stages.  The doctors say she has a good chance of recovery.  But she's quite weak.  A shame.  Well, you know.  She has it in her blood.  Her whole family ... "

Fitz already isn't listening to him anymore. He can't concentrate. The shock almost takes his breath away.  
He feels numb.  There's a loud rushing noise in his ears. Cancer. His mother has cancer. She's seriously ill. And alone. She has been alone the whole time ...

_Yes. You weren't here_ , a voice in his head, that sounds suspiciously like The Doctor, whispers in his head.  _ You were never here.  _ _You left her as alone as your father did back then ..._

"Fitz?" May's calm voice pulls him out of his thoughts.  He swallows and looks at her.  Her gaze is openly sad and shocked.  "I'm sorry," she says softly.  Honestly.

Fitz nods numbly. He looks back at his father who is watching them attentively.

Fitz starts to feel sick. He suddenly suspects what his father is looking for here. He involuntarily clenches his hand into a fist. "What are you doing here?  Are you looking for money?  Money for your beloved alcohol?" He asks coldly.

Alistair looks honestly surprised for a moment, then he shakes his head. "No.  I don't drink anymore," he says calmly. "I'm clean for years now."

Fitz snorts in disbelief. 

"It's true," Alistair says.  "I'm not here to look for money.  I'm here to help.  I wanted to bring your mother some things.  But unfortunately she doesn't want to see me." He sighs.  "Apparently she still hasn't forgiven me ..."

Fitz stares at his father in shocked disbelief. Suddenly, anger mingles into his anxiety and worry. Hot burning anger. "Well, you left," he says coldly. "You left us alone with a bunch of debts. Mum became severely depressed. She had to do therapy. Everything because you preferred the alcohol."   


Alistair raises a hand. "Listen, son.  I know that things didn't go quite well in the past.  But that was a long time ago.  Things have changed.  Let's talk somewhere in peace.  I know a good cafe around the corner ..."

"I don't want to talk to you," Fitz says, his voice starting to tremble slightly.  "You didn't just leave me alone.  You made me believe for years that I'm not good enough for you. I remember every word. Every insult.  I was eight years old when you told your useless drunk work colleague in front of me that I might have been exchanged at birth because such a weird, worthless, stupid child could never be your own flesh and blood ..."

May next to Fitz draws in a sharp breath. She doesn't know much about Fitz's childhood. Nobody but Jemma knows a lot about it. What she hears hurts her deep inside and slowly fills her heart with a burning rage.  


"And when I was nine, you thought words weren't enough, right?" Fitz talks on bitterly.  "You thought you could beat the things, you missed on me, into me.  With a belt.  Or, if enough alcohol has fogged your senses, with your own hands.  It took a long time for me to realize that it wasn't my fault.  It was your fault alone.  You are a manipulative, alcoholic asshole who doesn't understand how valuable a family is.  You are pitiful.  You will never know what it's like to experience true and unconditional love.  And you don't deserve that anyway.  You don't deserve mum. You don't deserve me." Fitz falls silent, breathing hard.  Sweat is building on his forehead.  A dull pain pounding in his head.

Alistair stares at him.  In his eyes is a mixture of surprise and anger. But as he speaks, his voice is willingly calm. "I admit, I made a lot of mistakes in the past.  The alcohol was my biggest mistake.  I know this by now.  And I think I have to apologize for my actions ... So: I'm sorry."

Fitz inhales sharply. "No!" He calls out and takes a step backwards.  He raises a trembling hand, shaking his head.  "That ... Don't do that!  I know what you are trying to do.  Let it be.  Let your threadbare, wrong games be.  You don't mean that apology seriously anyway ..."

Alistair raises both hands in a placating gesture. "I _am_ serious.  I'm back in business, son.  I'm a respected scientist here and if you're willing to accept my apology, if you're willing to listen to me, we could achieve a lot together.  More than S.H.I.E.L.D.  can offer you, if it even still exists. I heard some things. And I don't think it's a suitable workplace for you Leopold ..."

"Don't call me that!" Fitz exclaims, pressing a fist against his throbbing head.  "I will never work for you.  Never!"

Alistair's look suddenly darkens.  The smile disappears from his face.  He shakes his head and sighs.  It sounds resigned. "You know," he says coolly, "I always knew it was a bad idea to let you stay with your mother.  If I had taken you, maybe I could have made you a man.  A strong, honorable man.  A worthy successor.  But your mother made you a weakling who doesn't use his mind and instead lets himself be guided by useless feelings."

_He's right,_ The Doctor in Fitz's head whispers spitefully.  _ He's right and you know it. You're weak and he will never be proud of you.  But me, he would be proud of me.  I can be the son he'd always wanted.  _ _I could do so much with his help ... I could build an empire ... I've done it before._

"Shut up," Fitz mumbles and presses his fist harder against his head.  "Just shut up ..."

May throws a worried look at Fitz.

Somehow she senses that the words are not addressed to Alistair.

And she has enough.

She has been watching and listening to this for far too long. Was frozen in place by her own suprise and shock. Her heart hurts from the things she has learned about Fitz's past and this abusive, manipulative man in front of her. And she's sure that this unexpected incident could worsen Fitz's already instabile mental state.  


It's enough.

She clears her throat and steps forward briskly. "That's enough now," she says coldly, staring directly into Alistair's eyes.  "Fitz is not obliged to speak with you and he has made it very clear to you that he doesn't want to have anything to do with you.  So you better go now ..." The last one is not a request. It's an order.

Alistair's eyebrows rise in indignant surprise. "I don't take instructions from a ..."

"Don't.  Making May angry might be the last mistake of your life," Fitz says quietly, shaking his head.  "Trust me. You don't want to do that."

Alistair looks from Fitz back to May. Something hard in her eyes makes him give way.

He snorts derogatory. "Well.  This leads to nothing anyway ..." He goes with firm, wide steps past May. When he stands in front of Fitz, he rummages in his coat pocket, fetching a card. He hands it to Fitz. "This is my business card.  Just in case you change your mind ...," he says quietly.

Fitz takes the card, staring at the italic letters on it. Something about robotics is written on the lily-white paper.

Alistair suddenly pats him on the back and Fitz flinches involuntarily.

"Goodbye, Leopold.  I really hope you'll come to your senses," he says. Then he finally leaves.  After a few steps he disappears around a corner.

 

 

He leaves behind a heavy, bitter silence.

~

Fitz enters his old room and swallows.

It's all unchanged.

On the wall hang the pictures of space. Back then he stared at them and dreamed. Dreamed of building his own spaceship and exploring all the hidden planets in the universe.

Back then …

He sinks exhausted on his old bed and reaches for the stuff monkey on the bedside table. It's dusty and one eye is missing. Fitz stares at the plush animal and feels tears burning in his eyes. He clung to this stuffed monkey so often, when his drunken father had shouted his anger and disappointment throughout the house.

Fitz closes his eyes.

So many memories he doesn't want to have ... Together with the memories that he lacks, they create a painful mosaic that seems to tear him apart inwardly. The cold worry he feels at the thought of his ill mother adds to his pain, and finally he can't hold back the tears anymore.

He lowers his head and begins to sob helplessly.

At some point May is there. She sits down next to him on the bed, mumbling his name. She doesn't know if he would accept a hug from her. So she just puts a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn't recoil, she leaves it there.  Tries to provide mute comfort as much as she can.

As the tears dry, Fitz says softly, "I have to go and see her."

May nods.  "Of course."

Fitz looks at her and swallows. "Are you coming with me?" He asks hesitantly.

"Yes," May says firmly.

Fitz looks relieved. He puts the stuffed monkey back on the bedside table and gets up with a sigh.

May clears her throat. There is a question that can't wait. "Fitz.  Did you hear him today?" She asks urgently. They both know who she means with _him_.

She sees Fitz tensing.  His hands are clenching into fists. He looks at her. "No," he says.  Only this one word.  It sounds final.

May watches after him as he leaves the room with hasty steps. It looks like an escape.

She frowns, looking over at the stuffed monkey on the bedside table. Her heart is heavy with doubt and worry.


	3. Crisis

Jemma sits on her bed, staring into the void.

There’s a thunderstorm outside. She can hear the roll of thunder only faintly through the thick walls around her. Jemma has always liked thunderstorms. She loves the sound of steady rain against windows. Loves to taste and smell the fresh air right after the rain has subsided.

But Fitz doesn’t like thunderstorms at all, Jemma knows. She remembers the many evenings they spent in his or her room to study, Fitz startling with every roll of thunder. He always blushed and seemed like he was ashamed for it, but Jemma tried to tell him, that it’s okay. Because everyone is scared about something. She told him she doesn’t like narrow rooms. Being in an elevator makes her anxious and taking the subway at rush hour is literally one of her nightmares. And Fitz said okay and grinned at her relieved, almost grateful.  
_  
Fitz …_

She sighs, slowly laying down on her side, grabbing her pillow to press her face into it.

Fitz is in every cell of her mind. Always. In every minute, every second, every heartbeat.

She misses him so much it hurts.  
  
And finding a distraction from her desperate longing seems like an impossible task.   
  
She tried reading for a while. In her suitcase are a few books she has never read. She almost feels sorry for abandoning them like this. But first she never had the time and now she can’t concentrate because every thought brings her back to Fitz.

Her emotions are a confusing mixture of longing, worry, sadness, regret and the intense love always burning in her heart.  
  
And yes, she told him that it’s okay. That it’s okay when he leaves to Scotland, to try to process what happened. She said that it’s okay. But it really isn’t.  
  
She can’t do this.

The realization hits her with a surprising, terrifying force. It hurts so much. She helplessly starts to cry.

She clings to the pillow, trying to muffle the sobs in the soft fabric.

“Jemma?”

She startles at the voice saying her name, reluctantly raising her head. Daisy’s standing in front of the bed – Jemma didn’t even hear her coming in.

Daisy’s eyes are filled with worry. “Are you okay?” She asks.

Jemma hesitates. A part of her wants to say _yes_ quickly, because she doesn’t want to worry someone. She doesn’t want to be the reason that someone else feels bad. But another part of her desperately screams for some comfort, for some help to deal with this incredible pain that threatens to crush her mind …

In the end, she says softly, “I … um, I don’t know.”

Daisy nods slowly. She looks Jemma in the eye and seems to _understand_. “You want to talk about it?” She finally asks quietly.

Jemma sniffs, looking aside. “I … I really don’t want to be a burden … I know that everyone here has their own problems right now. I’m not that … that important.”

Daisy looks almost shocked. “But you are,” she breathes. “You are so so important, Jemma … listen, we all know that you care for other people a lot. Especially for Fitz. And you … you are good at it. Really. You’re good at taking care of other people. At cheering them up or comforting them. But you know, you shouldn’t forget you and your needs in the process. There are times when you need comfort too. And you should allow yourself to get it. To accept it.”

“Thanks Daisy,” Jemma breathes . Daisy’s words touch something deep within her … She was raised to be modest, to be reserved. _Someone_ , her mother used to say, _someone could always have it worse than you, Jemma. Be glad about what you have, don’t be sad about what you don’t have. And don’t be loud. It’s not decent._  
And Jemma tries. She tries to be glad about what she has. Because someone could have it worse … But now, she feels empty. Hopeless. It’s like she lost the love of her life twice. And it doesn’t seem like it could go any worse than that …

She takes a deep breath. Finally she says softly, “It’s just … It’s so hard, Daisy. It’s so hard to be without him. I see him everywhere. I can hear his voice echoing in my head. I miss him so much it hurts. And nothing helps … I can’t stop. And sometimes I start to feel guilty, because I’m still mourning, um, him … but at the same time, he’s there, needing me … it’s all so confusing, strange and unfair.”  
She hides her face in her hands, almost starting to cry again. She feels Daisy sitting down beside her, the mattress creaking softly under the extra weight. The next moment, Daisy wraps her arms around Jemma and that feels nice. Feels warm.

“You don’t need to feel sorry,” Daisy tells her seriously. “It’s just natural that you’re mourning Fitz, because, well, he _did_ die. It happened. You can’t just go on, even if Fitz is there again. First you need to process. That’s what Fitz realized, you know? He realized that you need time. Time to properly process what happened. And we’re here for you. I know it doesn’t seem like it now … but it will be alright. I know that. Because you two, you belong together. You will always end up together. And this time we will make sure, that you stay together.” Daisy looks at her, smiling grimly. “If I need to, I lock you two in a basement, guarding the door!”

Jemma can’t help but chuckle. “Well, at least we won’t have to fear anything ever again. Not with you being there.”

“Damn right. I will kick every creature’s ass to protect you,” Daisy says seriously. She hugs Jemma tightly, saying, “You will get your happy ending. You deserve it.”

Jemma wants to believe her. She really does. And she tries. At least she tries …

They look at each other, smiling weakly.

Finally, Daisy clears her throat. “Let’s do something together again … something nice,” she suggests.

Jemma swallows. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Yesterday, you were there for me all day,” Daisy says seriously. “Now let me be there for you as long as you need me to.”

“Okay,” Jemma whispers.

Daisy smiles at her. “I thought … we could bake something? I found some really neat recipes on the internet!”

“I don’t know, I’m not that good at cooking or baking,” Jemma says hesitantly.

“Me neither,” Daisy says cheerfully. “But hey, even if we mess this up, at least we will have a lot of fun!”

Jemma laughs and when Daisy takes her hand, pulling her from the bed out of the door to the kitchen, she doesn’t fight it.

 

In the end, the kitchen is a mess and they’re covered in flour, chocolate sprinkles and dough, but the cake they made tastes better than they’d expected.

 

And they really had a lot of fun.

  
  
~

 

The taxi drive to the hospital is silent.

Fitz leans his head against the cold windowpane, staring outside. His fingers never stop moving, playing with each other or picking at his clothes. 

May beside him shots him a look from time to time. She doesn’t like how he behaves since they saw his father. She’s pretty sure he’s holding something back from her. And it both worries and alarms her.

When they arrive, Fitz walks right into the big building, to the reception, to ask for his mother’s room.

May follows him on the step, watching him with still growing concern. He looks exhausted and agitated at the same time. His eyes are slightly bloodshot, his lip cracked at multiple places, because he constantly bites on it. She doesn’t say anything now, because she feels that he just wants to see his ill mother. The other things can wait, she decides.  
  
But when they finally stand in front of his mother’s room, Fitz suddenly seems hesitant. He looks at the door, swallowing, restlessly scratching his arms.

“I’ll wait here,” May tells him, sitting down on one of the uncomfortable, hospital-typical plastic chairs.

Fitz barely gives attention to her, he just nods jerkily, still staring at the door. Finally he lays his hand on the doorknob, exhaling audible.

He opens the door.

*

There she is. Sitting in the hospital bed, her back supported by three pillows. Her head is turned to the window.

“Mum,” Fitz breathes.

He sees her flinching slightly. She slowly moves her head to look at him. Her eyes widen in surprise. “Leo?” A smile starts to spread on her face, which looks horribly tired in an unnatural way. “Leo, you’re here …"

Fitz feels his throat clenching. Pain makes his heart ache and suddenly tears are burning in his eyes. “Mom,” he says again, all but rushing to her, carefully hugging her, feeling her hands slightly tremble as they move over his back. “Mom …”

She presses a kiss on his cheek, mumbling softly, “Oh Leo … My grown up, well-looking son.” She smiles up at him, as he lets go of her, her eyes as wet as his own. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Fitz takes her hand, feeling the first tears running over his cheeks. He swallows. “I’m sorry mom. I … I left you alone. You’re ill and I’m … I’m a bad son,” he stammers, lowering his head in shame.

But his mother shakes her head. “Don’t say that, Leo,” she says strictly. “I couldn’t be more proud of you. I know that your work is important and difficult. And your letters always cheered me up. Thanks for sending them … And,” she adds, squeezing his hand, “I will be alright. I’m not letting this illness win. Don’t worry. You know I’m a fighter, don’t you.”

“Yes,” he breathes. “I know. And I’m here now … I’ll stay.”

She frowns slightly. “But … your work?”

“I … I’m taking a break from it,” Fitz says evasively.

“Oh. I see. Well, sometimes you just need a time-out, to refresh,” his mother says, smiling warmly. She looks Fitz in the eye and frowns, when she seems to see something in them, that troubles her. “What’s wrong darling?” She asks, laying her hand on his cheek. “You look like something’s worrying you.”

Fitz swallows. For one desperate moment, he wants to tell her everything. Everything about space and time. About the end of the world and the things he can't remember, because he didn't experience them altough it was somehow _him_ who went through them. But no. He can’t. It would be too much for her. She’s ill and has to rest. How can he burden her with all those strange, absurd things? So he shakes his head, smiling faintly. “It’s nothing. It’s just that a lot happened lately. It was … overwhelming.”

“But did you do what you wanted? Did you create things and protect people?”, his mother asks curiously.

“Yes,” Fitz answers, swallowing. “I did what I could. And I don’t regret doing it.”

“Well,” his mother says. “That’s the important thing.” Suddenly, her gaze darkens slightly. “You’re father said, that you shouldn’t have started working for S.H.I.E.L.D., because it’s a criminal organisation. Not worthy for someone of his flesh and blood.” She sighs, closing her eyes. “He tried to visit me a few times. I always sent him away … I don’t want to see him.”

“You don’t need to meet him,” Fitz tells her, anger stirring in him. “You don’t owe him anything.”

She nods in agreement. “He asked for you,” she says then quietly. “Asked if I know where you are. He said that he changed and that he wants to … to fix things. Whatever that means.”

Fitz frowns. He decides not to tell her about his own meeting with his father. It only would worry her more. He feels bad for holding so much back, but he doesn’t want to hurt her. Not, when she's so vulnerable. She doesn't deserve more worries and fears. He watches, as she yawns, her eyes slipping shut a few times.

“You’re tired, mom,” he says quietly. “You should get some rest.”

She hums, squeezing his hand again. “Thanks for coming, Leo. Please don’t worry so much,” she murmurs. “I will be fine. And when I’m out of here, we can do something nice together, right? Maybe going to the beach, like we used to in the past.” She smiles sleepily at the memory.

Fitz swallows, laying a hand on her slightly sweaty forehead. “Okay, mom. We can do this.”

“And don’t trust your father,” she mumbles sleepily, her eyes already closed. “He may say he changed, but he didn’t. He’s still … still cold and manipulative. He’s … dangerous.”

Fitz frowns about the "dangerous", but he squeezes his mother’s hand reassuringly. “I know. Rest now, mom. You need it.”

It only takes her a moment to fall asleep.

Fitz sits with here for a few more minutes, watching her calm face, feeling like a liar.  
  
*

“You’re alright?”, May asks him in the taxi.  

 _No,_ Fitz thinks. _I'm not alright. I’m feeling torn. I'm feeling like I'm at the edge of a never ending abyss._

But he says, “Yeah.” And feels like a liar again.

The Doctor in his head chuckles.

*

Fitz sits on the bed in his old room, staring at one of the space posters on the wall.  
  
It’s late. May went to sleep on the couch downstairs in the living room.

Fitz doesn’t think he can sleep. He feels restless and anxious. And he fears the demons that haunt his nightmares.

His head throbs in pain. He presses both thumps against his temples, moving them in tight circles.

Pressure. Pressure in every cell of his body and mind.

His thoughts switch from his mother to Jemma to his father back to his mom, without him being able to control it. He groans quietly and presses his eyes shut. _I wish it would stop …_  
_I wish …_

And then it happens.

 _“You are pathetic,”_ The Doctor says cooly.

Fitz’s breath falters. He shakes his head. “Shut up,” he murmurs.

The Doctor laughs spitefully. " _Try to make me."_

Fitz groans, pressing his hands against his head. He wishes he would know how to. How to make this voice disappear … It’s just a voice. It isn’t real. He should be able to do something about it.

 _I should talk to May_ , he thinks. _Tell her the truth about the hallucinations …_

 _“And what do you think would happen if you do?”_ , The Doctor asks coldly. _“I’ll tell you. They will lock you up. Give you pills that will make it impossible for you to use your brain. Your brain. It’s great, you know. But you don’t use it. You could do so much … but you rather let your intellect be weakened by emotions. By_ love _…,”_ he sounds disgusted.

“Shut up,” Fitz growls again, trying to control his breathing, that gets more and more hectic. He feels helpless.

_“The best would be if I take control. I can use that brain much better than you …”_

Fitz gasps. Fear creeps in every cell of his mind. The words of The Doctor reminds him of Jemma’s words …

You had a psychotic split. He took control.

_He took control …_

“No,” he breathes in horror.

_No. I won’t let this happen. I won't allow it that someone gets hurt ...  
_

He frantically searches for a solution. The only one he finds in this desperate moment requires leaving the house. It requires being alone.

 

~

 

May wakes up abruptly, open eyes staring into the darkness. She’s a light sleeper. Trained to expect that someone tries to kill her in her sleep.

She sits up on the couch, her senses sharpening quickly.

She sees a shadow moving through the room. Frowning, she realizes it’s Fitz. He walks like in trance.

 _Is he sleepwalking?_ She asks herself, standing up slowly, deciding to try addressing him. “Fitz. What are you doing?”

He stops abruptly, his shoulders tensing. He turns around and she freezes, when she sees the weapon in his right hand, that is directed at her.

It’s an Icer. From where did he … No, she tells herself. That doesn’t matter now. All that matters is calming him down, making sure that he doesn’t do something stupid.

“Put that down, Fitz,” she says calmly, raising a hand.

“May. I don’t want to use it,” he says, his voice slightly trembling. “Just let me go. I have to leave …”

May’s heart clenches in worry. She moves carefully, placing herself between him and the door.

“I won’t let you go,” she says calmly. “I won’t let you go all alone. Like I didn’t a few days ago, when you wanted to come here. Running away is not the solution, Fitz.”

He makes a quiet noise that resembles a sob. The Icer in his hand starts to shake, but it remains directed at her. “What is the solution then? Staying here? Waiting until something bad happens because of me? Like it did back then, while I was bloody _sleeping_?” He raises his voice, sounding both angry and desperate. “Look around, everything’s ruined! My whole life is ruined! My mother is ill, I can’t tell her anything that happened, it would be too much for her. Jemma mourns another version of me and won’t look at me ever again the way she used to. Daisy is scared of me. She’s horrified! Everyone around me feels things I don’t understand when they look at me, they see me like a ticking time bomb because I’m damaged and broken and a danger to everyone around me!” He stops, trying to catch his breath, that is shallow and hectic. Suddenly he groans, pressing his free hand against his forehead, grimacing. “And he won’t shut up. He just won’t shut up!”

May feels more and more desperate. She feels like history repeats itself, only now it doesn’t happen silently, in the background, now it happens dramatically, quickly and right in front of her eyes. She has to do something. Now.

“I know that it’s not easy, Fitz,” she says as calmly as she can. “I know that it’s a lot and it seems like everything's crumbling around you … but we’re here to do something about it, remember?”

“But it’s pointless! I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I … I don’t know what to do. I don’t know!”, Fitz stammers.

“Then let me help,” May says slowly. She takes a careful step forwards, but Fitz grips the Icer firmer and suddenly there’s something cold in his eyes, that is so different from the helpless desperation that was in there just a second ago, that it makes her shudder.  
  
“I don’t want to shoot at you, May. But I swear I will do it. Let me through!”

“Fitz …,” she starts, feeling like she's losing, desperately struggling for the right words, but the next moment Fitz’s eyes suddenly switch to the void beside her, widening in fear.    
  
“Go away!” He yells.

He’s distracted and lowers the hand gripping the Icer. May seizes the opportunity and moves. She kicks the weapon out of Fitz’s hand, getting him in a headlock and wrestling him with her on the floor in seconds. He groans in pain and she feels sorry, but she doesn’t let go. Fitz struggles against her grip for a moment, but soon all the fight disappears from his body. He slackens and begins to sob. May loosens her grip and lays a hand on his back. “Come on,” she murmurs, leading him to stand up and sit on the couch. He lets her, his movements resigned.

May wraps him in a blanket, picks up the Icer and puts it into her bag. Then she goes to fetch Fitz a glass of water.  
  
When she hands it to him, he drinks gratefully. “Better?” She asks him quietly, but when he looks up at her, his eyes are tired and hopeless. “I just want it to stop,” he mumbles. “I want it all to stop.”

May’s heart aches. “You’re stressed and overwhelmed,” she says quietly. “You need rest. You need to allow yourself to think of yourself. You have to give yourself time to heal. And you need to stop trying to act like you’re alright when you clearly aren’t. Don’t let this win. Admitting that there’s a problem is the first step fighting it …”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight it,” Fitz murmurs, slumping until he lies on his back.

May clears her throat. “You don’t need to do it alone.” She hesitates. “I could call Jemma …”

“No!” He calls out, almost jumping up from the couch. “No, you can’t … don’t tell her. Don’t … I can’t have her worry about me. Not now … May, please.”

May sighs. “Okay. I won’t call her. I promise. Calm down, alright?”

Fitz nods relieved, lying back down. His eyes slip shut, but he tries to hold them open, blinking repeatedly.

May lays a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright. You’re exhausted. Try to sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

Fitz sighs. He closes his eyes. “I think I need help, May,” he mumbles barely audible.

“I know,” May says, squeezing his shoulder lightly. “I know … It’s okay.”

It only takes a moment for him to fall asleep. 

May sits down at the table, sighing, rubbing her temples. This isn’t at all what she expected. They left to escape the stress, just to find even more of it. At least there’s no lurking apocalypse this time. They will and have to take their time. They need a plan. And they need it quickly.

May doesn’t go back to sleep this night. She sits there, watching over Fitz, until the morning dawns.

*

Fitz wakes up in the morning to the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon. He frowns, looking around in confusion and slight alarm. Oh. He sees the familiar surroundings of his childhood and understands. At the same time, he remembers what happened in the night, his face burning in shame.

He almost shot May with an Icer. Almost ran away. As if this would solve anything … He swallows, fearing to hear The Doctor disagree. But for now, the threatening voice in his mind is silent. Now, as he can think clearer, he feels shocked about the thoughts and plans he had in the night. Shocked and ashamed.

Fitz slowly sits up, rubbing the corners of his eyes.

In this moment, May comes into the room, carrying a tray with two steaming plates scrambled eggs and two glasses with orange juice on it. “Good morning,” she says curtly, putting the tray onto the table. “Breakfast.”

Fitz swallows. “May,” he starts, “I’m …”

But May raises a hand, frowning. “Don’t you dare apologizing,” she says quietly, but grimly. “Now get ready so we can eat. We have things to do.”

Fitz obeys, relieve and gratefulness for her filling his troubled heart.

*

“So,” May says, when they’re sitting at the table, eating their eggs. “What are we going to do now?”

“I think it would be the best to go to my mother’s friend I was talking about. She’s a therapist and helped us in the past, when …. When my mom got depressed about this whole thing with my father,” Fitz says.

May nods. “Alright. You know where she lives?”

“Yeah. It’s not far away.”

“Good.”

*

The weather is mildly warm. They drive to a small village, which is surrounded by calm, beautiful nature.

They stop in front of a house, made of grey bricks.

A woman is working in the garden, with her back turned to them. She’s seems to be in her 40s, slender, her skin well-tanned. She has long reddish hair, bound to a loosely ponytail.

“Dr. Morrison?” Fitz asks hesitantly.

The woman startles slightly, straightening up, turning around to face them. She wipes over her sweaty face, looking at Fitz and May, frowning. Her blue eyes remain fixed on Fitz. They widen slightly and she makes a surprised noise. “Leo? Leo Fitz?” She asks, a bright smile spreading on her face. “It has been a long time.”

“Yeah,” he says. “A very long time.” He clears his throat. “I need help,” he states.

Teresa Morrison looks at him attentively, with an intensity in her eyes that somehow reminds May of Andrew, causing a distant pain in her heart.

“Okay. Why don’t you come in? We can have some tea and biscuits, and chat,” the therapist says invitingly.


	4. Three Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma has a terrifying nightmare. Daisy comforts her. Meanwhile Fitz makes three fatal mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen ... I'm sorry. Again.  
> I'm so surprised! And clueless what will happen next xD

“Hey! I have just bought everything we need for our Saturday movie marathon,” Daisy calls cheerfully, nudging the door to Jemma’s room open with her foot, her arms loaded with sweets and cola bottles.

But she stops, when she sees Jemma sitting on her bed, her eyes red and her cheeks wet, her face a mask of shock and helpless desperation.

Daisy immediately drops her load on the small table in the room, hurrying to sit beside Jemma, laying an arm around her. “Hey, what’s wrong, Jemma?” She asks concerned. “Did you have another nightmare?”

Jemma nods, not able to say anything. She whimpers, pressing her face against Daisy’s chest.

Daisy swallows, stroking a hand through Jemma’s hair slowly. “I’m sorry. I’m here if you want to talk about it,” she whispers, feeling Jemma nodding jerkily.

They sit like this for a while, while outside it's raining again. It's always raining at the coastside at the moment.

Finally, Jemma backs away, moving to open the top-drawer of her night table, to pull out a tissue packaging. She blows her nose noisily.

“I thought the nightmares were over,” she mumbles, looking at Daisy with wide open, desperate eyes. “I thought … it was so real, Daisy. So real.”

Daisy feels her heart aching for Jemma. “Do you want to tell me? It could help.”

Jemma breathes in deeply. Finally, she says, “I dreamed about him. About the Doctor.” She shudders.

Daisy swallows. She isn’t really surprised. “Oh.”

“Yes. It was … it was terrifying. I saw him killing Inhumans. There were … I knew some of them. I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t move. I could just watch. I begged Fitz to stop. I begged him to come back to himself. But he just went on, killing the Inhumans.” She sobs.

“It was just a dream, Jemma,” Daisy says reassuringly, although the memories come back, the memories of Fitz looking down at her expressionlessly, cutting into her, being indifferent to her pain and – she quickly shakes her head to get rid of the images, but Jemma already looks up at her knowingly. “Oh Daisy,” she breathes. “I’m sorry …”

“Hey. No. None of this is your fault,” Daisy hurries to say, stroking Jemma’s shoulder lightly. “This is all an awful mess and we all have scars now. We need to help each other with them.”

Jemma nods. She sighs. “You know … I think it’s strange. It’s strange that I dreamed of this now. Because, well, most of the time I dreamed about being without Fitz, searching for him everywhere, or standing in front of his grave, crying.” She shudders. “This dream was different. Maybe it shows how much I worry about him, Daisy. Because I do. What, if he has a psychotic split again, what if he does something bad and doesn’t notice. Or what if he runs away and I never find him again?” She looks at Daisy with a pleading desperation in her eyes. Pleading for comfort.

Daisy shakes her head. “Hey. You don’t need to worry about Fitz. He’s with May right now.” She grins. “He’s with earth’s mightiest warrior. She would kick the ass of everyone who tries to hurt him. And she would kick his own ass, bringing him to his senses. Trust me. He’s safe with her.”

“I know,” Jemma smiles weakly. “But still … I wish I knew what was happening in Scotland. They could at least call us, right?”

Daisy lays a hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “I’m sure they will. When everything’s settled.”

“I hope so,” Jemma mumbles, blowing her nose again. She looks at Daisy gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Hey, this is what friends are for,” Daisy says kindly, patting her back. “Now, are you still up for our movie night? Because I have bought an insane amount of sweets. I can’t eat that all alone!”

Jemma smiles. “Okay. What are we going to watch today?”

“Lord of the Rings. I’ve never seen those movies.”

“Unacceptable.”

“I know. I have a lot to catch up with.”  


*  


“This is a lot to take in,” Teresa says quietly, looking at the notes on her pad, frowning.

Fitz smiles weakly. He feels incredibly exhausted after talking for almost an hour. He closes his eyes for a moment. “I know. Sometimes it seems so much. Too much for one life.”

Teresa hums thoughtfully. The therapist scratches her nose, adding something to her notes silently.

They are alone in the flat. May has gone out in the garden, to give them some privacy for their talk.  

Fitz is grateful for that. It would have been hard, to talk about everything in front of May. Especially about the Framework parts.

He opens his eyes again, shifting on the couch nervously.

Teresa’s still looking at her notes.

Finally, she looks up, meeting his eyes. “You mentioned hallucinations. Do you have them now?” She asks.

Fitz swallows. “Yeah.”

“How often?”

“Um. I think every few hours. They are more frequent when I’m feeling stressed. Which happens a lot lately,” he says bitterly.

“Are they visible?”

“No. Not now. I only hear voices. Well. One voice.” He shivers, almost expecting to hear him in response, but for now his mind stays silent.

“Okay. So, if I got this right, you froze yourself so that you can travel to the future, to find your team. When you found them, you all travelled back to the past to save the world. This made two of you exist parallely. But the self travelling back died. And your team found you still sleeping in space, waking you up. Did I got that part?"

Fitz nods carefully. He’s surprised at how well Teresa seems to take all that strange, unbelieving facts he’s telling her.  
But then, he guesses she must be used to hear strange things all the times. “And your now-dead self did things, that Jemma, your girlfriend and the other members of your team remember, but you don’t.”

“Yes.”

“Including a psychotic split”

“Yes.”

“And now you fear that might happen to you too.”

“Yes,” Fitz says again.

Teresa nods thoughtfully. “That’s why you felt like you have to leave.”

Fitz just nods.

Teresa scribbles something on her pad, then looks at him seriously. “I have to ask you two more questions. Please answer them honestly. Did you think about suicide lately?”

Fitz grits his teeth. The question startles him, although he expected it to come. He instinctively wants to say no, but he knows he has to stop holding things back. He has to be honest to himself and the others. Otherwise, nothing will get better. So he nods curtly.

“And did you have a concrete plan?” Teresa questions further.

Fitz hesitates. He thinks about the episode he had last night, when May talked him out of leaving the flat. He was thinking about killing himself, but he didn’t really have a plan. It was more like a urgent desperation to make everything go away. To not have to feel anything.

He shakes his head.

Teresa looks at him for a moment. She clears her throat. “I’m going to be honest, Fitz. I think you should check yourself in a clinic. For safety reasons”, she says softly.

Fitz closes his eyes for a moment. He feared she would say that. “I know why you think that but … I can’t,” he says, leaning forward on the couch in his urgency. “My mother. I have to be there for her. I can’t leave her alone again.”

Teresa nods in sympathy. “I know. I know you worry about her. But you’re wellbeing should matter the most right now. You didn’t have a chance to work through all those things that happened to you over the years. You went through multiple traumas. At some point, it will start to overwhelm you. It already does.”

Fitz restlessly fumbles with the buttons of his shirt. “I know. And … I want to get better. I really do. But I can do this better without being locked up and surrounded by strange people. I feel like that would stress me out even more. I … I’m not doing well with changes. This, my mother's flat and your help, I think I could do that.”

Teresa taps a finger against her chin. She thinks for a while. Finally, she slowly says, “If we do this, you have to know that there will be quite a lot of things you have to remember to do,” she tells him. “You're going to have to take medications and develop a proper sleep and eat schedule. You also have to tell me about any thoughts about harming yourself or any worsenings of your symptoms, like the hallucinations.”

“Okay,” Fitz says. “I can do that. I just … I want to get better as quick as possible,” he says quietly. “I want to feel whole again.”

Teresa looks at him attentively. “I understand that. You want to go on with your life. But please be aware that therapy doesn’t make all the trauma simply disappear. It’s more about finding a way to deal with it. To be able to look into the future without having your life being controlled by your mental heal issues.”

“I know,” Fitz says quietly. “I’m ready to do this.”

“Okay.” Teresa puts her pad away. “We meet tomorrow at the same time. Then we can talk about medication and the therapy methods you feel comfortable with.”

“Okay. Thank you,” he mumbles.

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s call your friend in. I think we deserved us some more cake.”

*

Fitz is silent on the way back. May doesn’t ask him about the talk with Teresa. He’s grateful for that. He feels empty and unbelievable heavy at the same time. 

When they arrive, Fitz starts to unpack his suitcase.

May watches him calmly.

“I think you can go back to the team now,” Fitz tells her, when he’s finished, scratching the back of his head restlessly. “Now that everything is settled.”

May raises her eyebrows. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. You can tell them that I’m, um, that I’m fine and that they don’t have to worry. Especially Jemma.”

May looks at him sternly. “You’ll phone me. Every evening. If you don’t, I will take the Zephyr and come here,” she says slowly. Seriously.

Fitz sighs. He can’t help but feeling a hint of warm happiness at her words, which reveal her everlasting concern. After all it feels good to know, that someone cares so much about him and his wellbeing. “Okay May,” he says. “I will phone you.”

May clears her throat. “Good. Don’t forget it. I want to be sure you’re alright.” She picks up her bag, looking at him, a tight smile on her lips. Her eyes get softer. “Goodbye Fitz. Don’t forget, that we all care about you and when you need us, we’ll be there.”

Fitz swallows. Her words make his heart fill with gratefulness and warmth. “Thank you May. Thanks for being there."

She nods, opening the door. She throws a last glance at him. “Don’t forget to not be too hard on yourself, Fitz. You’re a good man.”  

And with that, she’s gone.

Fitz’s alone.  


He doesn’t know yet that letting her leave was mistake number one.

*

Life begins to have a rhythm again.

Fitz wakes up to the confusingly familiar and yet strange sight, smell and noises of his childhood home.

He showers and makes himself breakfast. Mostly, it’s scrambled eggs or just cereals. Pancakes remind him too much of Jemma.

Later, he visits his mother. It’s always painful. It’s painful to see her tired eyes and her emaciated body in the way too big hospital dress. But when she smiles at him, it reaches his heart and warms it. He helps her in a wheelchair, pushing her out in the garden, so she has some light and fresh air. She always tells him, how grown up he is, touching his cheek with her unnaturally cold hand. It makes him tear up, but he smiles at her nevertheless, covering her hand with his own.

The doctors tell him, that her recovery goes well. And that he might have a good influence on it. And so he always feels bad when he has to leave her, seeing her waving, smiling warmly. But he comes back the next day.

In the afternoons, he makes his way to Teresa. He always enjoys the unhurried walks through the countryside. The natural quietness around him, only disturbed by chirping birds, a lonely, slow driving vehicle or a plane in the sky from time to time, is soothing.  
  
The talks with Teresa aren’t soothing at all. They are rather upsetting and painful. While talking with her, he feels all the old wounds breaking open. And he realizes how fractured his mind really is. It frightens him. At the same time, it feels good to do something about it. Feels like fighting back.

The walks back home are slower. Exhaustion and sadness make his feet heavy.

When he’s back, he usually falls asleep on the couch for a few hours.

In the evenings he phones May. She always asks him if he wants to speak to Jemma. But he says no. He says no, although the longing he feels for her makes his heart ache painfully.  He isn’t ready for it yet.

May never urges him. She just says okay and ends the call.

After, Fitz takes his medications and goes to bed. He sleeps better now. Dreamless and almost without any interruptions. His body and mind taking back the rest they so urgently need.

Almost two weeks pass like this, and it’s alright.

Sometimes, when Fitz walks back home from Teresa’s, he feels like someone’s watching him, but he blames his overall fragile mental health for it and doesn’t look around for any real threats.

Mistake number two.

*

He walks to Teresa’s flat, the sun pleasantly warm on his skin.

Later, he will think that he should have noticed something.

The closed curtains. The watering can on the ground. More footsteps in the garden than usually. Footsteps of heavy boots instead of Teresa’s slim slippers.  

But he doesn’t notice anything strange. He’s too lost in his thoughts.  
  
Jemma. He thinks of Jemma.    
  
She’s in his head all the time. He misses her so much that it hurts. It like a part of his heart is missing. An important part. He asks himself if she feels the same way right now. He hopes she doesn’t. Because he can’t stand the thought of her being in pain. He quickly reassures himself, that she has Daisy and the others. They will take care of her. Sure they will.

And the faster he gets better, he thinks, the faster they maybe can start to see each other again.

Only if she wants to, of course.

The thought it could be possible that she doesn’t want to see him, makes his stomach drop. He quickly shoves it away, replacing it with careful hope, that feels much better.

He thinks of Jemma’s smile, opens the ajar door and walks right into Teresa’s flat.

Mistake number three.

*

Fitz looks up, right into the dark barrel of a gun. A gun, his father’s holding.

His breath falters. Every single thought disappears from his mind, leaving back a numb shock, that’s quickly replaced by alarm.

“Leopold.” His father’s voice is too loud in the silent flat.

Fitz quickly notices, that they are not alone. There are three more men in the room, wearing black clothes and helmets, covering their faces. They hold rifles in their hands, but they are pointed to the ground. They are observing the happenings in silence.

Fitz feels adrenaline rushing through his body. His heart starts to beat faster, his breath flattens.

He glares at Alistair.

“Where is Teresa? What did you do to her?” He asks, noticing that the therapist is nowhere to be seen in the room. Worry makes his heart ache. He clenches a hand into a fist.

“She’s fine. She’s in her room upstairs,” Alistair says. He clears his throat. “Leopold. We don’t have much time. You have to listen to me …”

Fitz feels anger stirring in him. He can’t believe his father’s talking to him like he’s not holding a gun to his head. Like they were just doing small talk …

“I told you already. I will never work for you,” he says coldly. He guesses that’s what this is all about.  
  
_He’s dangerous …_ his mother’s words echo in his head. Now he knows what she must have meant. Did his father lose his mind? Did he become a scientist working on some dubious mad stuff, thinking Fitz would join him? Well. He’s wrong when he thinks Fitz would do anything to help him.

“You know, I’d rather die than being part of whatever sick plan you have,” he explains his thoughts to his father. And it’s true. Oh it’s so true.

He won’t hurt anyone. Never again.

Suddenly, he feels his senses sharpening. His body relaxes as the tension of panic leaves it, replaced with rage and determination. He stares at the gun.

Alistair opens his mouth again. Whatever he wanted to say, dies on his tongue. The moment freezes. Fitz moves without really noticing. One moment he stands in front of his father, unarmed. The next, _he_ has the gun and points it to his father’s head. Their roles reversed in just a moment.

Fitz’s breath falters, as a part of him is shocked about what he just did, trying to remember it, while at the same time he expects to be killed on the spot.

But there’s no shot. The men around them only raise their rifles. Three red dots appear on his chest.

Still, Fitz grips the gun in his hand firmer. “Call your minions back,” he tells his father coldly, who is rubbing his wrist, his face a mask of pain and surprise.  

“So it’s true,” Alistair murmurs. “What he said is true. You really have that in you …”

"I said, call them back, or I'll shoot you." _And maybe die in the process_ , he adds mentally. He is not as much afraid of being shot as he maybe should be. In fact he's more afraid of the slight hint of relief he feels at the thought.

 _Well._ _Somehow I shouldn’t be here anyway, right?_ _I’m an anomaly._ _Maybe the universe is correcting that mistake right now …_

Alistair sighs. They are not _my_ minions,” he says, raising his hands. “Please put the gun away. You don’t understand …”

“I think I understand quite well. That’s what your bloody  _I’m a respected scientist again_  was about, right? You’re working on something wrong, something that will threaten the world or my team. My family. You must be crazy if you think I would help you …” With every word, Fitz feels more agitated. His head starts to throb and there’s a rushing noise in his ears.

Alistair looks at him intensively, suddenly shaking his head. “Leopold. You have to listen to me. They know everything, you understand? _Everything_.”

 _They._ _They?_ _Who’s they …_

Fitz doesn’t understand. He frowns, staring at his father. There’s something in Alistair’s eyes now. Something desperate, that makes Fitz shudder involuntarily. Confusion mingles into his rage. He doesn’t understand …

But then his father says, “Please”, with a strange pleading urgency in his voice.  

Fitz swallows. Something’s very wrong here. Fear creeps into his mind. A way too familiar fear. Someone’s in danger, he knows instinctively. And suddenly he starts to realize, that his father might not be the one pulling the strings right now.

After a last glance into Alistair's pleading eyes, he lets the gun drop. It lands on the floor with a dull sound.

His father exhales audibly. He shakes his head, looking down as if in shame. “I’m sorry Leopold. I didn’t want this to happen.”

Fitz stares at him. “What have you done?” He asks stunned. “What the bloody hell have you done?!”

“I met the wrong people,” Alistair mumbles. “And now there’s no way back.”

Fitz shudders. He opens his mouth for a question, that dies in the void.

Because someone pulls a bag over his head and everything goes dark.


	5. Icarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, this fic turns into something I would have never expected ...  
> It really has an own life.  
> Also I wrote my first OC villain? Wow. That's so cool! ^^
> 
> I hope you like it a bit, even if it takes a different turn than maybe expected in the beginning.

May takes a look at her watch and frowns.

Fitz hasn’t called her yet. He’s half an hour late.

The last days, he always called at the same time.

She decides to wait a bit more, trying to calm down and not to worry. For a while, she distracts herself with yoga. She’s doing yoga and mediation a lot lately. There’s no immediate threat and the exercises distract her from the omnipresent pain in her heart, caused by the loss she suffered and still didn't process.

Phil … Kisses in the sunset, sketches of hearts in the sand. She felt so safe with him. So safe as she’s never been before. In the beginning, she thought she could do it. She could spend those last moments with him and then say goodbye. But he’s gone. And she still didn’t say goodbye.

She tries to calm her mind, breathing evenly, her eyes closed and her body relaxed.

Focus …

When she opens her eyes a while later, Fitz still didn’t call.

May sighs.

She said it and she meant it. If he doesn’t call her every evening, she will pay him a visit. And if he just forgot it, she will kick his ass …

Grimly, May thinks about what she's going to do now.

In the end she decides to sneak out at night, to not cause Jemma or Daisy any further worries. She senses that if Jemma knew something could be wrong with Fitz, she would want to come along. But in the state she is – still so sad, still mourning, still in pain … - it only would cause her more stress.

Instead, May calls the one person, she trusts, that wasn't affected by the latest happenings in form.

*

Hunter waits for her, when she’s leaving the Zephyr in Scotland, leaning against a black van.

“May,” he says, grinning. “Good to see you.”

“Hunter,” she answers, giving him a small smile. “How are things.”

“Well … Since we're trying the whole being married and maybe getting children thing again, Bobbi is quite strict and doesn’t allow me to stray a lot. But since it’s about Fitz, she gave me permission to play outside longer than until 8pm,” He says, winking.

May nods curtly. “I told Fitz to call me every evening so I would know he's alright. He did so. Until yesterday.”

“You’re sure he didn’t just forget it?” Hunter asks, scratching the back of his head.

“It’s a possibility. That’s why we will look for him at his mother’s flat first.”

“Alright”

*

“Well. I guess that settles it,” Hunter mumbles, when they open the door to the house, Icers raised, staring at the mess in front of them.  

The floor is covered in books, documents and opened letters that were carelessly pulled out of drawers and cabinets. It looks like someone was searching for something.

Hunter walks ahead, checking every room. But May already knows instinctively, that they are gone.

She sighs, looking at a photo album on the ground. She sees a photo of young Fitz, grinning into the camera, pointing to a monkey in a tree. She guesses the pic was taken in the zoo. Her heart clenches, as worry starts to fill her heart.

“Do you think he was kidnapped?” Hunter asks, when he’s back in the living room.

“Seems so. The question is by whom,” May says.

 “Well. Hydra can’t be it this time, right?” Hunter asks, scrunching his face up in disgust. “Please don’t let it be Hydra. If I have to deal with one more of these slimy, worthless pieces of  …”

“No, I don’t think it was Hydra. I think it has to do with his father,” May says. “We met him the first day here and he said some suspicious things …”

“What? Are you seriously trying to tell me that Fitz senior might be the new villain of this story?” Hunter asks, his eyes widening in disbelief, “How many more problematic people does Fitz still know or is related to?”

“Mabye his father is working with or for someone else,” May says quietly. ”Anyway, whoever has him, I don’t think they will harm him in any way. Most likely, they want to use him and his abilities for something. But I suggest we find him as quick as possible, before the others find out. Or before his mental state gets even worse,” she mutters.

Hunter frowns. “What do you mean with that?”

May sighs. “He’s mentally unstable. He has hallucinations and when I was here with him, he had a quite severe meltdown. He just started therapy. I can’t believe he’s in danger again now. I shouldn’t have left him alone,” she mumbles, feeling guilty.

Hunter lays a hand on her shoulder, looking at her sympathetically. “We’ll find him, May. Let me talk to my contacts and you can search for information here,” he suggests.

May nods curtly. "I _guess_ I should go to his therapist’s house next. Maybe she noticed something.”

They leave the house without a further look back.

*

“Will you tell Jemma and the others about this?” Hunter asks her, leaning against his van.

May sighs. “I don’t think it would be a good idea. They are all still sad, tired and need rest. If I told her about Fitz, it would …”

“If you tell me what _about_ Fitz, agent May?”

May and Hunter flinch. They turn around, their eyes widening in surprise.

Jemma and Daisy are standing in front of them. Jemma’s eyes are sparkling in angry worry, while Daisy just looks very hurt.

“What are you two doing here?” May asks stunned. “And how did you …”

“You’re holding things back from us,” Daisy accuses her, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is not okay. We are supposed to be a team, and you’re lying to us?”

“Daisy … I didn’t lie to you. I wanted to make sure there’s something wrong, before I tell you,” May explains. “It was just to spare you more, perhaps unnecessary stress.”

“Well. Apparently, the stress _is_ necessary. If something’s wrong with Fitz, I have every right to know what’s happening,” Jemma says angrily, her voice trembling. “So, will you please finally be honest to me?”

May looks at her. She sees the rage in Jemma’s eyes. But she also sees fear and worry. It makes her heart feel heavy. How much more do these kids have to endure … Finally, May sighs and lays a hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “Fitz was most likely kidnapped,” she tells her. “We don’t know by whom yet. We have to search for information.”

Jemma and Daisy gasp in shocked surprise.

“Oh Fitz,” Jemma breathes. She sways slightly on the spot, and Daisy grabs her arm, looking at her worriedly.

“I think his father could have something to do with it, since we met him the day we arrived here. But we can’t be sure. We need a hint,” May tells them, while Hunter’s watching with a worried frown on his face.

There’s a moment of shocked silence.

Then, Jemma surprises them all, when she makes a small, angry noise, crossing her arms over her chest, looking at them expectantly.

“Well. What are we waiting for?” She says grimly. “Where do we start?”

 

*

 

The bag disappears abruptly.

Fitz blinks into way too bright light,

He swallows.

This is not at all what he’d expected.

He’s sitting at a large dining table. A glass of red wine in front of him. The room he’s in looks very old and a few dusty chandeliers are hanging from the ceiling. He can hear silent classical music in the background.

This situation is more absurd than scary to him right now. He looks around, frowning in confusion. His father is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, a strange man is suddenly stepping out of the shadows, and Fitz flinches.

The man smiles. “Doctor Fitz,” he says nasally. “We meet at last.”

He looks like he belongs into this room. He’s old. And so tall and thin, that he looks almost emaciated. His skin stretching over bones. His lineaments are sharp and cold. He has short, flat hair and is wearing a long brown robe with the badge of a flaming sun on it. He reminds Fitz faintly of an abbot.

“My name is Magnus,” the man says, sitting down opposite of Fitz, his legs crossed. “I hope your travel wasn’t too uncomfortable. Please excuse the horrendous thing with the bag. We can’t risk having our base revealed just now, Doctor Fitz.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Fitz says, shivering in slight disgust.  

Magnus ignores him. He takes his own glass of wine, taking a sip from it, watching Fitz over the edge of it, with sharp silver eagle like eyes.

The somewhat knowing glance makes Fitz shudder involuntarily. “Are you Hydra?” He asks dryly. It’s the first thought he had. He doesn’t know if this would make the situation better or worse. Because at least, he _knows_ Hydra.

“No,” Magnus says curtly. “Hydra is no more. Exactly like Shield. Well. Aside from your small team of fugitives.” He chuckles mildly amused.

Fitz swallows. “What do you want from me?”

“Well. It’s horribly simple, I fear,” Magnus says, smiling. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes but it reveals a lot of perfect white teeth. It’s like a shark’s grin. “I want what’s in there.” He points at Fitz’s head with one, long finger.

Fitz blinks in confusion.

“Ah. I see your father didn’t tell you anything about us, just yet. Good. This means he followed our conditions,” Magnus says calmly. He clears his throat, leaning back in his chair.  
“Let me explain it to you. Now that Hydra is dead and gone, smaller, ambitiousness groups with way more, um, realistic aims can rise and be successful. We call our project Icarus. The name may seem … contradictory, but we like to say that it reminds us not to be too arrogant. Hydra was arrogant. Shield was arrogant too. They both fell. We prefer to act more in the background and reveal ourselves only if we have to. But we already have quite a reputation in the underground. And I’m happy to say, that your father played an important part on our way to success.”

Fitz feels more and more sick. So this is just another maniac with another organisation that wants to rule the world? Well. He can’t really say he’s surprised. It’s like an old game. Like chess. The rules don’t change. Only the players do.

“See,” Magnus goes on. “The world isn’t as simple as it once was. We need to be prepared. The next war will come. It will be different. And it’s just a question of time. When it comes, we will provide the weapons the world needs, to stay in balance and not be destroyed.”

“Weapons,” Fitz murmurs tonelessly. He thinks he understands now. “Let me guess. You want me to build you some kind of machine which will allow you to rule the world,” he says tiredly.

But to his surprise, Magnus shakes his head. “Not quite. No. That’s not why _you_ of all people are here. No offence, Doctor Fitz, but I already have a lot of brilliant scientists and engineers, who help me to build the weapons I have in mind, including your father. I need your help for… another goal we have yet to achieve. Let me show you something.”

He stands up, prompting Fitz to follow him.

They leave the dining room, walking through a dark, narrow hallway. Cold water is drippling on them from above and there’s a faint rushing around him. For a moment Fitz asks himself if they are underwater, and the thought makes him even more sick and sweating.  

Finally, they come to a halt in front of a curtain. A few men in suits are standing in front of it, looking at Magnus and Fitz blankly.

“What you will see now, may confuse you. But I can explain,” Magnus says quietly. He nods at one of the men, who pulls the curtain aside.

Fitz gasps. His eyes widen in shock.

In front of him appears a cage about his height. Inside, there’s a little girl, sitting on the ground, her knees drawn to her chest.   She can’t be older than eight.  Her long, messy blond hair hides her face. But Fitz sees a glimpse of a blue eye, widened in fear and suspicion. Fitz notices an untouched plate of biscuits on the bottom of the cage beside the girl.

“This is my granddaughter,” Magnus says calmly. “Eva.”

The girl doesn’t react to his voice.

Fitz glares at Magnus. He feels neausous and angry at the same time. “How … how can you lock your own granddaughter in a cage?” He asks stunned.

“Well. Not long ago she went through terrigenesis. We don’t know why. But she changed. Drastically,” Magnus tells him. The first time since Fitz has met this man, there's something else in his eyes than calm seriousness. It's something like regret and sadness. “She killed her mother and three of my scientists, shortly after it happened, right in front of my eyes.”

Fitz swallows. He takes a closer look at the girl. He can’t discover anything unusual on her. But he notices now that her small figure is trembling incessantly. Pity makes his heart clench. He wants to shatter the lock of this cage, cradle the girl to his chest and take her away from this place.

Magnus nods to one of the men, who carefully pulls the curtain back in front of the cage.

He looks at Fitz, raising his chin. “Doctor Fitz. I love my granddaughter. And I want what’s best for her. Right now, she can’t be walking around here. It’s too dangerous, in regard to what she's now cabable of. I want you to help me, to get her back to her old self. I know that you experimented on Inhumans in the Framework, to find out how they tick and how they react to different conditions. I know that you might have been close to finding a cure. And I want you to continue your studies and find a solution here. Now. So this .. this _thing_ disappears and I can have my granddaughter back."

“What?” Fitz can’t believe his ears. “How … how can you possibly know about _this_ ,” he stammers, taking a step back.

“I know everything about you,” Magnus says. It sounds quite pleased. “Knowing things is what I do. It makes life so much easier, you know? Anyway. Our labs are extremely well equipped and only the best scientists work for me, so I think you will find that you have a excellent preconditions. But in case you need something, I would of course provide it. No limits. And I have a lot of Inhumans captured for tests. Once we found out how we can secure them, it became a lot easier to contain them here,” he explains in a blank voice.

Fitz breathes in deeply. He feels sweat breaking out on his forehead. What is happening here …

“You … you want me to experiment on Inhumans?” He asks, horrified. “So I can find a, a _cure_ for your granddaughter?”

Magnus smiles brightly, as if he’s glad Fitz has finally understood. “Yes. But you won’t only do it for my granddaughter. I’m not egoistic. I want the whole world to be freed of this curse. Because it is a curse, Doctor Fitz. It only causes hurt and chaos. The world doesn’t need people with superpowers. You certainly remember what happened in New York. Or Sokovia. And Shield had to deal with a whole enclave of those Inhumans. It could happen again. Sometime there will be one of them again, who thinks that their kind is superior to ours. They will gather, and we need a proper solution for this problem. Hydra wanted to rule the world Shield wanted to protect it. Well. Icarus wants to _save_ it. Sure, if you don't find a way to turn them back into their old selfs, we might have to, um, be more drastic ... I will free the world from Inhumans. No matter what."

The more Fitz listens to the man, the more tired and desperate he gets. This is bad. Really bad. He thought Magnus is just another maniac, who thinks of himself as a messiah, as the righteous ruler of the world. But no. The way he's talking ... He really hates Inhumans with a burning passion. It can't be only because of his granddaughter. There has to be more.  
Something about this man scares Fitz in a strange, new way. In any case, he and his organisation are an actual danger for every Inhuman. For Daisy. For Yo-Yo.

Never would he allow to be a part of a plan, that intends to hurt his closest friends.

And when Magnus looks at him expectantly, he says, “No. No I won’t help you. This is _wrong_.”

The smile on Magnus’ face slowly dies. He sighs. “I really hoped I won’t have to do it. But if you don’t cooperate freely, I guess I have to adopt … more drastic measures.”

Fitz smiles weakly. “I guess you mean torture. Well, you can try."  _I don’t know if there’s even enough left of me to break_ , he adds in silence.

“Torture,” Magnus repeats. It sounds disgusted. “No. Good God. We’re not that primitive. There are more effective, less repulsive ways to come to an agreement ...”

 _Says the man who thinks it's alright to experiment on Inhumans_ , Fitz thinks, shocked and worried.

He watches as Magnus nods to one of the men in the room, who lays some photos on the table in front of Fitz.  

Fitz looks at them. He freezes.

“I guess I don’t have to comment on this,” Magnus remarks.

No. He really doesn’t have to. The photos show all the people that are close to him. His mother in her hospital bed, looking at the tree in front of her window with calm eyes. May, entering the Zephyr, probably when she was leaving Scotland. Even Hunter and Bobbi, in front of a house that’s unfamiliar to Fitz, smiling at each other.

And Jemma of course. Most photos are showing her.  Jemma, walking with Daisy over a street, eating ice cream. Jemma, sitting on the beach, thoughtfully staring into the distance. Jemma …

Fitz swallows, pushing the photos away, as traitorous tears start to burn in his eyes.

“What do you think about joining our project now?” Magnus asks him calmly.

Fitz closes his eyes. He shakes his head. “Listen. I don’t know what you expect. I can’t just … I can’t turn into the man I was in the Framework. I’m not some kind of secret supervillain. I’m mentally ill. The Doctor is now just a voice in my head. A hallucination that comes out to haunt me when I’m stressed or scared. I'm me. And I don’t know how to find the “cure” you’re talking about. I don't think there is one."

Magnus hums thoughtfully. “I don’t expect you to turn into another person. But everything that happened in the alternate reality, the things you did there, those aren’t hallucinations, are they? Those are _memories_ and you have them somewhere in your mind. You just have to find them and use them. I’m confident you can manage that, Doctor Fitz.”

Fitz stares at him, speechless.

Magnus smiles at him, standing up again, knocking dust off his robe. “Think about it. But I must warn you that in fact not everyone involved in the project is as, um, _patient_ as I am, Doctor Fitz. So I would advise you to change your mind before someone decides to change it for you.”

With that barely hidden threat, he leaves.

Fitz stares after him, then back at the photos, feeling sick.

Slowly, panic rises in him. His hand starts to tremble and he still feels the tears burning in his eyes.

_What am I supposed to do now? I can’t … I can’t experiment on innocent Inhumans. At the same time, I can’t risk that Jemma or the others are hurt because of me …_

He suddenly wishes he would still be sleeping … Frozen in space. At least, he wouldn’t feel this pain then.

 _Look at you_ , the voice of The Doctor suddenly says in his voice _. Now someone finally appreciates your intellect and your abilities, but the only thing you can think of, are your pathetic friends. They’re holding you, us, back again._

Fitz groans. _Shut up_ , he tells the voice.

He doesn’t have his medication, he realizes with sudden fear. At the same time he remembers Teresa and the just started therapy, that now was for nothing.

A sudden rush of anger makes him want to slam his fist into the table in front of him. Why does it always have to be like this? He starts something new, that will lead him into the right direction, only to be ripped out of it, back into some kind of dark nightmare, in which he’s forced to do things he doesn’t want to do.

He hides his face in his hands.

He can’t do this. He can’t help this disgusting man, who puts his own scared, probably traumatized grandddaughter in a cage. He can’t.

He won’t.

There’s still hope. Fitz is sure that May will notice something’s off. At least when he doesn’t call her, she has to notice. And she will do something to find out what’s wrong. But he doesn’t know how long it will take her to find him. He doesn’t even know where he is.

So he needs an escape plan. And he needs it quick.

 _You know, that you not only have memories of Inhuman experiments in your head_ , The Doctor tells him in a bored voice. _If you wouldn’t be so scared of everything from the Framework, you could use it. You did it before_.

_And although this man says he knows everything, he doesn’t seem to be aware that I was indeed not only trained to work in a lab. I was also trained to kill._

The voice suddenly sounds very eager.

Fitz swallows. He remembers how he took out the men when Hunter and he escaped from the military base. It’s true. Back then he did things, he has never trained. Sure, May and Bobbi taught him some basic self-defence and he trained with weapons to be a better field agent. But the way he moved that day, that was something entirely else. He remembers the surprised look on Hunter’s face.

It’s true, he has it in him. The question is, can he control it. And what would it cost him.  

Involuntarily, Fitz remembers Ward. Ward was trained to kill too. And when the time came, he did it without question. Merciless. He shudders. No. He’s not Ward. He can do this without losing himself.

It’s about finding a balance. As long as he uses the abilities of The Doctor for the right thing, it doesn’t make him a cold-hearted killer, right?

 _Right_ , The Doctor whispers. It sounds a bit spiteful, but Fitz ignores that for now.

He closes his eyes, starting to think. Starts to run scenarios in his head.

 

He needs to find a way out of here.

 

And he will take the Inhuman girl, no _Eva_ , with him, no matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really looking forward to write some action scenes, I rarely do it ^^
> 
> And I finally found a way to get Hunter into the story. I love him. He has to be there :D


	6. Angels and Demons

_Eva draws circles into the snow with a fingertip._ _She looks small and lost._ _A little girl who is all alone in the world._

 _Fitz finishes the makeshift bandage around his hurt shoulder. Stripes of his own shirt is all he has._ _Concerned, he looks at the blood, that paints the snow bright red under him._ _This isn’t good._ _He lost blood and has nothing to disinfect the wound. He also doesn’t have any water or food._ _He has to contact the team somehow._ _A phone … He needs a phone._

_Fitz looks around and sighs in resignation._

_They are in the middle of nowhere._ _Around them nothing but snowy hills and naked trees._ _In the distance some ravens are screaming._ _Otherwise, it’s quiet._

_He looks at Eva, who now stares straight ahead into the void. She starts to nibble on a finger._

_Nearby, there’s a river and after a last concerned glance at Eva, he goes there, to test if it’s drinkable._

_The water in the river is silver and so clear, that he can see the reflection of his grim face. It’s speckled with blood._

_He swallows, when he involuntarily remembers. Remembers moving through a heavy fog of violence and rage … He shakes his head to get the images away._ _He needs a clear head right now._ _There's a girl he needs to look after._ _And he has a wound which will probably kill him if he doesn’t find civilization quickly._

 _After a moment’s hesitation he takes some of the icy water in his hands, washing his face with it, shivering._ _Then, he drinks some of it._ _It seems to be clean and doesn’t taste strange._ _Relieved, he drinks some more._

_He goes back to Eva, who looks at him, a finger still in her mouth._

_He sits beside her and sighs. “I’m an engineer, you know,” he tells Eva for some reason, wiping his wet hands on his bloodstained trousers. “I’m not a killer.”_

_Eva looks at him attentively but says no word._

*

“I’ll do it.”

Magnus face lits up. “I’m glad. But I didn’t expect anything else from you. After all, you are a scientist. Scientists need challenges, don’t they?”

Fitz shrugs, hiding his disgust by turning his head away from Magnus’ glance. His eyes fall on the photos of Jemma and the team on the table again and he feels cold hatred raging in his heart.

Magnus clears his throat. "Well. I’m going to show you the lab then. You will find it sufficient, I hope. But I already told you, I can get you everything you need. And more.”

He walks to the door and Fitz follows him after a moment. He feels that something inside him is hungry for the violence that is to come and it scares him. But it’s unavoidable, so he shoves the fear away and tries to feed the hunger even more, by letting the rage consuming his heart.

They walk through a hallway and again, there’s water dripping from the ceiling.

Magnus doesn’t talk and Fitz uses the time to look for any cameras. There’s none apparently.

 _Idiots_ , The Doctor murmurs snidely.

Magnus leads him through a hall, where people are working on what appears to be weapons. Fitz notices that there are some men with guns, watching the workers. They are all wearing the same brown robes as Magnus, with the badge with the flaming sun on it. The workers are all unarmed. And not all of them seem to enjoy their work. Fitz notices some scared glances at Magnus. He notices bruised faces and way too thin bodies. What the hell is happening here? He wonders. However this is going to end today, Icarus will be something the team has to investigate further, he feels.

He still sees no cameras.

Finally, Magnus opens a door and they enter what is obviously a lab. There is a lot of familiar equipment and Fitz almost feels glad to see something he can understand. Everything looks new and modern and he can’t help but wonder. He runs his fingers over a microscope and sees out of the corner of his eye, how Magnus smiles.

Fitz inwardly growls. That man thinks he knows him. He thinks he knows everyone and everything. But he will see.

 _Oh yes. He will see,_ The Doctor agrees.

For the first time today, Fitz doesn’t tell him to shut up.

Magnus opens another door and they enter a smaller room. It looks like a common treatment room.

But the man that is lying on the treatment table is bound and gagged. Wide fearful eyes met Fitz’s and he starts to feel sick.

“One of the Inhumans we could catch,” Magnus explains matter of factly. “It wasn’t easy to find out, how to make them more harmless, but in the end, we had huge success with a mix of common sedatives and bonds that send electric shocks when there’s too much change in the body. Not bad, right?”

“Yeah,” Fitz mumbles distractedly. He feels like he’s about to throw up.

The Inhuman is barely older than 18, he sees.

 _Scum_ , The Doctor murmurs. _This old man isn’t completely wrong, you know …_

Shut up, Fitz thinks, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Well. I’m going to leave you alone now. You can check if you have everything you need. If that isn’t the case, just call for me.”

“Okay,” Fitz says.

Magnus nods and leaves the room, closing the door behind him quietly.

Fitz looks for any cameras in this room and is surprised to find none again. Why are they so careless, he wonders. But he quickly shoves this thought away. There are more important things to think about right now.

He goes to the Inhuman, leaning over him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says quietly.

The boy’s eyes widen even more. He looks disbelieving.

“I’m going to remove the gag. But you have to be quiet, okay? If you alarm someone outside, we won’t come very far."

After a moment, the Inhuman nods.

Fitz removes the gag, and the boy takes some quick, deep breaths. He then looks at the other bounds. There’s cable tie around the Inhuman’s feet.  

 _We’ll need this_ , The Doctor says.

Fitz doesn’t ask. He can imagine.

He goes to the table beside the treatment table, picking up a scalpel.

Carefully, he starts to remove the cable tie.

“Why are you doing that?”  The Inhuman says quietly, watching him.  

Because I need this,” Fitz says matter of factly, testing the strength of the cable tie with pulling at it with all force. “For the first man that comes through that door.”

He looks at the Inhuman, who seems speechless. “What’s your name?”

“Um. Ryan.”

“Okay, Ryan. Listen to me. I’m going to get you out of here. But you need to hide, until I took out the armed men, alright?”

Ryan blinks. “Are you some kind of secret agent?” He asks excitedly. “Like James Bond?”

Fitz almost laughs. “No. No I’m anything but James Bond …”

*

_Fitz looks at his shoulder, frowning. He can already see blood soaking his makeshift bandage._

_He feels a bit drowsy by now. He takes some snow in his hands, wiping his face with it to feel more alert again._

_Eva watches him attentively. She suddenly turns her head, looking into the distance, as if she heard something._

_Fitz swallows._ _If they are being followed … they leave well pronounced footsteps in the snow. They really have to find a road, quickly now._ _“Come on,” he whispers, walking on through the almost kneedeep snow._

_Eva follows him._

*

When Fitz finally removes the straps over Ryan’s chest and the bounds around his hands, the boy sits up with a groan.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

“Do you have a family,” Fitz asks him.

“Yeah. They’re in Wales. I’m …” Suddenly, Ryan stops talking. He frowns.

“What’s the matter?” Fitz asks concerned.

Ryan shakes his head. “I … I don’t know. I feel … strange.”

The next moment, he presses a hand against his head, groaning. Fitz watches in shock, how Ryan’s eyes roll back and his body begins to tremble.

The boy falls back on the treatment table, seemingly having a seizure. Foam suddenly appears around the corners of his mouth. And then, all of a sudden, the Inhuman stills. A last exhale – then nothing.

And Fitz understands. “No,” he breathes. “No …”

He touches Ryan’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. Nothing.

 _They must have implanted something inside of him_ , The Doctor muses. _Something that kills him when he’s free of his bounds? They are not as stupid as I thought, apparently._

Fitz swallows. He feels guilty and horrified. But there’s also that burning rage in his heart again, that gets stronger and stronger.

He wants to kill them. One by one.

 _Ah,_ The Doctor breathes, sounding delighted. _I like this feeling._

Fitz growls. He takes a lamp that stands on a table nearby and throws it against the wall. There’s a loud bang and Fitz actually hopes someone heard it.

He breathes in deeply, and wraps the ends of the cable ties around his hands tightly.

*

_He’s tired. So tired._

_Every step seems to increase his exhaustion. Fitz groans and stops, breathing heavily._

_Eva looks up at him, her eyes filled with worry. She pulls at his arm, pointing behind them urgently._

_“You think you heard something?” Fitz asks her worriedly._

_Eva nods._

_“Okay,” Fitz mumbles. “Okay. We’ll go on soon, alright? Just … I need a little break.”_

_He drops his bloody jacket on the ground again, sitting down on it with a pained groan. His wound is throbbing._

_Eva sits down next to him, leaning against him carefully. Fitz wraps an arm around her._

_“Everything’s going to be alright,” he mumbles, feeling like a liar._

_*_

The door opens, and Fitz moves.

He throws the cable tie over the head of the man that comes in and _pulls_.

The man makes a choked noise and drops the gun. It lands on the floor with a dull sound. He raises his hands to try to get the cable tie off his neck, his breaths coming in short, pained gasps.

Fitz pulls the man with him until he’s leaning against the wall. He listens to the gasps and feels no pity. But after some time, he realizes he can't just kill this man. He doesn't know anything about him. Maybe he's just a victim too. Maybe he has a family somewhere ...

I'm not a killer, Fitz thinks, reminding himself that he's not going to lose himself here. He isn't like Ward. At least he hopes so.

When the man finally loses conscious, Fitz lets go of him. He drops on the floor.

 _What are you doing?_ The Doctor hisses.

“It’s enough,” Fitz says, wiping his sweaty face. He throws the cable tie away.

 _You want them to stay alive, so they can come after you and the girl? So that they can find you and your team later? You’re stupid,_ The Doctor scoffs.

“Shut up,” Fitz murmurs, searching the man for more weapons. “I’m not a murderer. I will only kill if I have to.”

He finds a knife and takes it. Then he picks up the man’s gun, checking the magazine. It’s full. Good. He breathes in deeply one last time and opens the door.

*

_The night out in the wilderness is so cold, that every inhale burns like icy fire._

_Fitz feels like the only warmth comes from his throbbing wound._ _He coughs and quickly presses a hand over his mouth._ _The noise is too loud in the deathly silence out here._

_He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling like he could fall asleep any moment now._

_Suddenly, he feels something warm against his chest. He realizes, that it’s Eva, who shuffles closer to him, until she’s laying with her back against him._

_After a moment’s hesitation, he wraps his arms around her._ _He feels her heartbeat under his hand._ _It’s comforting._

_At least they can spend each other a bit of warmth like this. But it’s not enough, he knows. They can’t stay here forever. It’s dangerous. They have to move. The cold is just as dangerous as are the men who probably are searching for them._

_He stays awake as long as he can, but after a while, he can’t hold his eyes open anymore. He falls into a light, restless slumber._

*

The next moments are a blur. There are screams around him. And shots. He moves almost automatically. Take cover, shot, take cover, shot … Run.

Other people are running too. Men, who aren’t armed. Who are just there and Fitz lets them run. At some point, he feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, but he ignores it.

Take cover, shot … Run.

He doesn’t notice, but every single one of his shots finds its target.

He stumbles around a corner and sees his father.

He stands there, a paper in his hands, his eyes filled with confusion. They wander over Fitz’s bloody face and widen.

“Leopold,” he says.

Fitz shudders at the name. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps.

Alistair swallows. He raises his hands. “Listen, son. I didn’t want this to happen …”

“Shut up,” Fitz growls. The gun trembles in his head.

It would be so easy. Everything is easy when you have a gun. It’s just one shot more.  

His father looks into the barrel and exhales shakily. He seems somewhat defeated.

You are the reason for all of this, Fitz thinks. You left me. You told me I’m weak and worthless. You hurt my mother. You left me. You acted like you want to be a family again and then kidnapped me. You left me …

For a moment, his finger tightens around the trigger.

But then Fitz fights back the fog of blood and hatred inside his mind and finally lowers the gun. “Go,” he says tonelessly.

Alistair hesitates. “Leo …”

“Go!” Fitz yells, raising the gun again.

And after a last glance, Alistair leaves, disappearing inside a room.  


The running continues.

*

_Fitz startles awake, because there’s shouting and dog barking in the distance. Eva makes a fearful noise, clutching at his shirt._

_Fitz grabs his knife and Eva’s hand. “Come on,” he says, standing up, groaning in pain. He feels dizzy. For a moment he thinks, he will lose conscious, but he throws a handful of snow in his face and starts to walk straight forward grimly._

No. Not this way, idiot. Walk through the river _, The Doctor says sharply._

_The water will be freezing, Fitz thinks doubtfully. We could catch pneumonia. Or worse._

Do you want to get caught instead? You’re half dead already anyway. This is the only chance, they won’t find you immediately.

_Fitz grits his teeth. The evil bastard is right._

_He leads Eva to the river, taking her in his arms to carry her. He feels his wound tearing open further and knows, he doesn’t have much time left._

*

“You,” Magnus says. It sounds shocked and angry.

“Yeah. Me,” Fitz answers coolly, raising the gun again, aiming it at Magnus’ head. “Obviously, you don’t know everything about me. Pity. And now, the only thing you didn’t know is going to be your end.”

“I’m not the only one, you know,” Magnus says calmly. “I’m not even one of the heads of this organisation. Actually, my personal interests always interfered with the goals of the other members of the circle. They observe your team. They observe every single person who is connected to you. I won’t be the end …”

Fitz swallows.

_Jemma …_

He remembers the photographs and growls in cold anger. “I want the names of your friends,” he says. “And their whereabouts. Now.”

Magnus laughs. “What makes you think, I would give them to you?” He says, shaking his head. “I’m not scared of death, young man. I’m old and the only person I care about, my granddaughter, turned into a monster. What is there to lose for me?”

“You said torture is primitive,” Fitz tells him, tilting his head. “And I think it’s cruel. But The Doctor … he sees torture as a way to get what he wants. And I think he knows best how it works.”

After a moment, he aims the gun at Magnus’ right knee. The old man pales visibly. “You don’t have that in you,” he mumbles. But now it sounds doubtful.

“You’ve seen what I’m capable of. Give me the names,” Fitz says.

He feels some kind of anticipation, but …

Wait … What am I doing here?

Fitz inhales shakily, the gun starting to tremble in his grip. He feels panic stirring inside of him, pushing away all the rage and determination.

No. This wasn’t part of the plan … I didn’t want to lose myself in this. I won’t.  

 _You heard him_ , The Doctor says. _There are others …_

But I can’t do this. This is wrong!  

Fitz bangs his free fist against his head, groaning.

It’s just a moment.

But it’s long enough for Magnus to realize he’s distracted. To throw a book at Fitz from somewhere and attack him with an angry grunt.

Fitz groans in pain, when Magnus’ shoves him backwards and hits the wound in his shoulder. He stumbles over something on the ground and falls. Magnus falls with him. There’s a short fight and Fitz doesn’t know how, but he manages to keep his gun and ends sitting on his knees, aiming it at Magnus again, breathing heavily.

Magnus suddenly looks amused, although he bleeds from his nose. “See? You don’t have that in you,” he mocks. “After all, you are scared of what’s inside your head and that means, that you will always have a weakness …”

“Shut up,” Fitz growls, gripping the gun firmer.

Magnus chuckles breathlessly. He opens his mouth again, but suddenly, his eyes widen in surprise and fear. “No …,” he breathes. “How did you get out? How …”

Fitz follows Magnus’ glance.

The Inhuman girl, Eva, is standing in front of them. She escaped the cage, Fitz wonders. How?  

“Eva,” Magnus says softly, raising a hand and standing up slowly. “Listen, darling. There’s no need to be scared. Why are you out? You shouldn’t be … You’re sick, you know? You … I just want you to be better. Go back to your cage and we will find a way to make you better, alright?”

Eva doesn’t say anything. But she stares at her grandfather and makes a noise. It sounds pained.

Magnus takes a careful step towards her. “It’s going to be alright,” he says. “Everything’s going to be alright, little star. Just …”  
He falls silent, his eyes widening in horror, as Eva suddenly wraps her arms around herself, groaning and bending over.

“No,” he breathes.

Eva screams in pain and then it happens.

Fitz watches breathlessly, as two giant wings come out of Eva’s shoulders, spreading out wide. White feathers, looking sharp like fresh razor blades. 

Fitz blinks. _Oh my God …_

Magnus makes a noise. It sounds half sad half disgusted. “Eva,” he breathes.

“Grandpa,” she whispers. It’s the last word she’s going to say for a long time. Then, she moves her right wing one time and the following shock wave throws Magnus back against the wall. The old man falls on the floor, unconscious.   

The girl turns her head to Fitz, staring at him. Her eyes are wide open and full of fear. The feathers of her wings rustle softly, as she shakes them.

She looks like an angel. Like a holy warrior. But she’s just a terrified little girl.

Fitz drops the gun, raising his hands slowly. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he tells her, trying to smile. “I … I wanted to get you out of here.”

Eva looks at him and something in her glance seems to say, “I know.” She closes her eyes. The wings start to go back, back into her oh so small body. She groans softly.  
  
Fitz doesn’t understand how it works, but he sees on her face, that it must be painful. As painful as the moment when they come out.

Eva sinks to the ground, curls into herself and starts to sob softly.

Fitz carefully moves to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. He sees that there are two holes in her dirty t-shirt. Two holes for a pair of wings, that seem to come out of nowhere. How is that even possible … It’s nothing like they have ever seen when it comes to Inhumans. Is she even one? His thoughts are interrupted, when he hears angry yelling somewhere else in the building. “We have to get out of here,” he tells Eva seriously. “There are more … they will come here.”

The girl blinks up at him, her eyes filled with confusion and pain.

Fitz swallows. “Listen. I have friends who can look after you. One of them, Daisy, she has powers. She’s Inhuman just like you. You are going to like her.”  
He reaches a hand out to the girl.

Eva wipes her face. She looks at her grandfather, blinking. She looks back at him, and nods slightly. She takes Fitz’s hand. Her fingers curl around his, warm and soft.

Fitz squeezes her hand, exhaling shakily. “Do you know a way out of here?”

Eva nods.

*

_The noises disappeared._

_Apparently, it helped to walk through the river._

_They walk past an abandoned barn, the first sign of civilization for hours, and Fitz feels careful hope stirring in his heart._

_He thinks of Jemma and his throat clenches._

_He misses her so much._

_The thought of her warm eyes and her gentle touch give him the strength to take a few steps further._

_He needs to see her again. He needs to hold on for her._

_He takes Eva’s hand again and walks on._

*

Eva leads him through a tunnel, that leads to a ladder.

It’s a long way up, but when they finally reach the surface, Fitz just needs to shove a heavy lid aside and he sees the blue sky, breathes fresh air. Really cold, fresh air.

They climb out and Fitz’s stomach drops.

They are in the middle of nowhere.

There’s not much more but snow. When he looks to the side, he sees a lot of water.

So they really were under a lake. He involuntarily shudders at the thought of being underwater.

 _How long will you stay here, idiot?_ The Doctor tells him dryly. _You realize they will come after you?_

Fitz knows he’s right.

“Come on,” he tells Eva. “We have to go.”

He quickly starts to walk through the snow. Eva follows him on the step.

They leave the base of Icarus behind them, but while Fitz feels relieved to be free again, he also feels worried about the blood that comes out of his wound. He presses a cloth against it, hoping he won’t pass out sometime.

*

_They’re standing on a hill. In the distance, Fitz sees a lonely patrol station. He sighs relieved._

_This petrol station is their only chance._ _He has to call Jemma. Has to tell them to get them as quickly as possible._ _He feels drowsy from blood loss and his wound is throbbing rhythmically. It’s burning._ _Can’t be a good sign._

_Eva looks up at him. He sees the exhaustion in her sad eyes._

_“I’ll carry you,” he tells her, crouching down so she can climb on his back._

_Eva wraps her thin arms around his neck._

_“It’s going to be alright,” Fitz mumbles, standing up carefully, stumbling towards the petrol station._

_For the first time since they escaped, he feels like it really could be the truth._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, this story gets weirder with every chapter, but I love it :3
> 
> Eva is like my favourite OC now ^^
> 
> I was damn tired today, so sorry if there are more mistakes than usual.


	7. Nothing Ever Happens Here

It’s a calm evening and Michael is determined to finish his new X-Men comic before his shift at the petrol station is over.

He has a bowl of popcorn beside him on the counter and absently reaches into it from time to time, lazily shoving a handful in his mouth, while he's reading.

It’s a delightful story. It’s definitely more exciting than his whole workday. It really has been a horribly boring week. Nothing ever happens here in the middle of nowhere. Nothing …

The door opens.

Michael frowns in surprise and irritation. He mumbles a “Good evening”, not even looking up from his comic. Maybe it’s just someone looking for alcohol or chips.

But then steps are approaching him. Slowly but evenly. They stop abruptly in front of his counter.

Michael reluctantly looks up, right into the dark barrel of a gun, and freezes.

_What …_

His stomach drops and his breath falters, as his mind tries to accept a reality, that seems like a bad movie or a nightmare to him. He drops his comic book on the ground and slowly raises his hands.

 _Oh God._ _It’s a fucking mugging_ , he thinks dully. _But … here?! Of all damn petrol stations, it had to be mine?!_

When Michael manages to tear his gaze away from the barrel, he sees, that the man that points the gun at him looks like he has just killed a whole bunch of people. There’s dried blood everywhere. On his face, his ripped shirt and his pants. There’s even some in his unruly, curly hairs. He’s breathing heavily. His eyes are cold. Ice-cold.

Michael gulps. _I’m going to die_ , he thinks. _I’m going to die. And I’m not ready._

For some absurd reason, the first things that comes into his shocked mind is the unfinished comic book on the ground … _I wanted to know how the story ends …_

Hell. He doesn’t know what to do. Maybe he should tell the man that he can have all the cash. Which ... really isn’t much. But maybe, if Michael’s lucky, he will settle for it and leave …

He’s interrupted in his desperate thought process, when the man coughs. The gun shakes in his hand. Michael follows it with his eyes almost hypnotized.

“Phone,” the man suddenly says in a hoarse voice. “I need your phone.”

Michael blinks. “Um,” he makes.

The man sighs. He wipes his free hand over his bloody face. And then, his eyes switch to the side for one moment. He stares into the void, tilting his head, like he’s listening to something. “Shut up,” he mumbles angrily.

Michael frowns. He feels the perspiration trickling down his neck over his spine. Fuck. The guy is _insane._

_I’m definitely going to die …_

The man looks at him again, his eyes narrowing. “Your phone. Now.” He frowns, as if he’s trying to remember something. Then he adds, in a much calmer and friendlier voice, “Please.”

Michael blinks. _Please?_ Do scary serial killers usually say please? In the movies, they don’t …

He finally manages to move again. He nervously reaches for his phone in his jacket and hands it to the man with a shaking hand.

The man makes a relieved noise and hastily grabs the phone. “Eva,” he says softly, and suddenly Michael sees, that there’s a little girl behind the man with the gun, holding on to his shirt with her fingers.

The man looks at Michael questioningly. “Do you have … water?”

“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I have water,” Michael says nervously.  

The man nods. “Can you … please give her some. And maybe something to eat.” He lowers his gun while he's talking.

“Okay,” Michael says slowly. “Um. I have … Are biscuits alright?”

“Perfect,” the man breathes. Suddenly, a small smile spreads on his face. Somehow, it makes him look even scarier. He stares at the phone in his hand, but then he looks back at Michael again. “It’s not … not what it looks like.” He sounds almost desperate.

Michael just nods carefully. He definitely won’t disagree a man who has a fucking gun.

The man looks at the girl again. “Eva … I need to, to call someone. Stay with the man, okay? He’s … He’s alright.”

Michael feels a first careful hint of hope. _Did he just call me alright?_ _Hey._ _Maybe I’m not going to die today._

The girl – Eva? – hesitantly lets go of the man’s bloody shirt, walks towards Michael and reaches for his hand. Michael feels his heart warm up a bit and smiles down at her. “Hey sweetheart,” he says. She just looks up at him wordlessly, her face blank.

After a last careful glance at the man with the gun, who now focuses on the phone in his hand, Michael leads the girl to the drinks dispenser and takes a water bottle out of it. He hands it to her. She grabs it immediately and drinks greedily, almost too quickly. She spills a few drops on the ground. “Slowly,” Michael tells her friendly, still glancing nervously at the man with the gun from time to time, who now dials a number, with a concentrated frown, cursing to himself about “bloody shaking hands”

Michael swallows.

This is crazy. He should run. Yeah. He definitely should run … And maybe he should take the girl with him. What if the man kidnapped her? But somehow Michael feels like that isn’t the truth …

When the girl emptied the water bottle, he gives her some biscuits. She’s eating them with a sudden, happy glee in her blue eyes, looking at it in wonder, like she's never seen a damn biscuit. She’s pretty, Michael thinks. And probably really smart. He has always been good with kids. In the past he was babysitter for his entire neigbourhood. He knows a lot of kds. But there’s something about this girl, that feels horribly wrong and sad …

Michael hears the man clearing his throat and he looks at him again, seeing that he’s pressing the phone to his ear now, supporting himself on the counter, the gun loosely in his free hand.

He looks dead exhausted.

After a moment of waiting, someone seems to answer the call. The man’s eyes widen and he inhales shakily. He closes his eyes and says a single word. It sounds like a prayer. “Jemma.”

Then, he suddenly sways and Michael watches shocked, how he drops to the ground with a dull sound. _What the hell?_

Eva makes a frightened noise, drops the biscuit and hurries to the man, who lays on the floor unmoving. She shakes him, tears filling her eyes.

Michael watches, not sure what he’s supposed to do now. _You should call the police_ , a voice in his head tells him sternly. And, yeah, that would be the logical choice, right? He was threatened with a gun, by a man covered in blood and there’s a little girl that doesn’t speak a word … Yeah. He definitely should call the police.

He walks towards the man, looking at the phone, that’s laying beside his limp hand. But first, he picks up the gun, that feels horribly wrong in his hand. He has never held a gun ... He looks at it, shuddering.

Suddenly, he hears a voice coming from the phone and startles. It’s a woman’s voice. And it sounds frightened. “Fitz? Fitz is that you? Fitz talk to me!”

Michael sighs. Something in him yells at him, to just end that call and _finally_ call the police. But … He can’t. Something about this is so strange, that he can’t believe it’s an ordinary crime … He loves good stories. Maybe this is one.  
  
_Idiot_ , a voice in his head says. He ignores it. With a disgusted noise, he lays the gun on his counter. Then he picks the phone up and says, “Hello?”

He hears a sharp inhale. “Who’s there?” The woman asks.

“I’m … My name is Michael. Your, um, friend came into my petrol station and threatened me with a gun,” he says. “Now he passed out. And to be honest, I think I should call the police …”

“No!” She says sharply. Then she adds, in a calmer tone, “Please don’t. Listen … we are from SHIELD. Do you know SHIELD?”

“SHIELD?” Michael echoes, almost dropping the phone in his surprise. “I thought … I thought there’s no SHIELD anymore?”

“Well. Officially, there isn’t. We’re staying in the shadows. But we’re still protecting the world. We just saved it. And the man in your petrol station, Fitz, he was kidnapped. Apparently, he managed to escape. Please don’t call the police … Let us pick him up instead …”

Michael frowns. SHIELD? He takes a look at the man on the ground. Well … that’s indeed a good story. And he feels like it could be the truth. And if he could help SHIELD? The legendary organisation that lead to the Avengers initiative? Yeah, Michael doesn’t feel ashamed for being a fan of them …

He swallows. “But how you’ll get here?” He asks the woman.

“We’re quick. We have a plane. We can track the phone,” she tells him. “Please … Can you not call the police? We’re there as soon as we can.”

Michael swallows. He looks at Eva, who’s still shaking the unconscious man on the ground, tears now running freely over her small, dirty face.

“Okay,” he says. “I won’t call the police. Um. I’m going to try to keep him warm until you’re there.”

“Thank you,” the woman breathes. She sounds like she’s crying. Michael starts to ask himself, if she’s in love with the man on the ground. “Thank you so much …”

She ends the call.

Michael stares at the phone for a moment. Then, he lays it back on the counter and goes to the man. When he touches him, the girl looks at him with something wild and angry in her eyes. “It’s alright,” Michael tells her. “I just want to help.”

She stares at him for another moment, like she’s trying to read his thoughts. Then, she nods.

Michael turns the man on his back and discovers, that he’s bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. He stands up again, fetching a blanket and his medical kit.

He can’t believe it. It was the most boring day of the week. And now? Now he’s sitting on his knees, trying to patch up a damn SHIELD agent.

His confused mind remembers a movie quote, that fits the situation quite well.

Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you’re gonna get.

 

*

 

Jemma still can’t believe it.

She can’t believe she’s looking at the love of her life, who she hasn’t seen for weeks now.

They’re back in Scotland, in the same hospital Fitz’s mother is recovering. She insisted on patching him up herself. She couldn’t stand watching other people touching him right now.

While she’s tending to him, she remembers.

 

It already seems like it was an eternity ago, that Daisy tracked the phone, that they took the Zephyr and flew to the specific location as fast as they could.

She remembers how she first saw Fitz, laying on the ground motionless, wrapped in a blanket, his face pale and his whole body covered in dried blood. And -  
– _for a moment she’s looking at his body. For a moment she’s back in the lab, trying to accept reality, trying to process, that her husband is dead. That he died buried under debris, without her. That he won’t open his eyes again …_    
 - But she managed to shove those thoughts away, hurrying to Fitz, already opening her medical bag, while May crouches in front of the strange girl, that’s sitting beside Fitz for some reason, staring at all the new people around her with wide eyes.  

The man, Michael, was watching them attentively. “Are you really from SHIELD?” He asked, sounding almost reverently.

“Yes,” Jemma told him distractedly, while quickly removing the bloody bandage covering Fitz’s shoulder. She revealed an ugly bullet wound, which made her gasp in shock.

“Oh Fitz,” she mumbled, tears filling her eyes. “What have you been through …”

It’s unbelievable, that he called them before they even had a concrete clue of his whereabouts. They just managed to free his therapist, who wasn’t hurt but quite frightened. She wasn’t able to tell them much. Hunter’s contacts gave them a few possible locations, but it would have taken them a while to find the right one. Fitz called them right when they were talking about their further steps.

“He must have freed himself,” Daisy said from where she was crouching beside Jemma, looking at Fitz concerned, but also somehow proudly. “Look at all that blood. That isn’t only his, is it?”

“I don’t think so,” Jemma mumbled, hastily cleaning and re-bandaging the wound. “But I think he lost a huge amount of blood. We have to get him into a proper hospital quickly …”

“And that girl,” Daisy said, frowning. “Who is she?”

Jemma looked up, seeing May talking to the girl in a hushed, friendly voice.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We will have to wait until Fitz can tell us …”

They hurried to get Fitz into the Zephyr, thanking Michael one last time. The man looked after them speechless.

 

And now they’re here int he hospital and everything’s already much better. Fitz is laying in a proper bed. He’s clean and patched up. Two IVs provide him with fluid and blood and Jemma eventually allows herself to sink on the chair beside his bed. She feels exhausted, but also unbelievable happy, to have him back. Finally. She feels sick to the stomach, when she realizes, that he had to fight alone again. She should have been with him. She always should be with him ...

She takes his hand, squeezing it lightly. “Oh Fitz,” she murmurs. “I missed you so much …”

She startles a bit, when he squeezes her hand back weakly. Surprised, she sees him opening his eyes. “Jemma,” he whispers.

“Hey,” she smiles at him, laying her free hand on his cheek. He leans into the touch, inhaling shakily. “You’re here,” he mumbles.

“Of course I’m here, Fitz. God, I missed you so much …” She shakes her head, feeling tears burning in her eyes.

“I missed you too,” he murmurs. “It was a bad idea to, to leave you …”

He sighs. Then he frowns, as if he’s trying to remember something.

“Eva,” he suddenly says, his eyes widening. He tries to sit up, groaning in pain. “Eva … Where? Where is she?”

Jemma frowns. She carefully urges him to lay back down by his shoulders. “Don’t. You’re hurt. You shouldn’t move around too much … Is Eva the little girl, that was with you at the petrol station?”

“Yes …” He whispers, looking up at her concerned. “Where …”

“She’s alright, Fitz. She’s with May and Daisy.”

His eyes fill with relieve. “Good … That’s … you have to look after her. Her grandfather wanted to, to … She’s Inhuman.”

“Inhuman?” Jemma asks surprised.

“Yes. She … she has, um, wings. Like an angel,” he says, breathing heavily. “But … her grandfather … he locked her in a cage …”

“What?” Jemma gasps, shocked. Her heart immediately fills with pity and anger.

Fitz nods. “He wanted me to, to “cure” her.”

“But … there’s no cure for being Inhuman,” Jemma says, frowning. She feels, that this is bad … Something dark is lurking in the background again …

Fitz hums. He struggles now to keep his eyes open. She wants to tell him to sleep, to rest, but she also wants to let him tell. Because they have to know … “He knows … Her grandfather knows about everything, Jemma. He knows about the Framework. The Doctor. He wanted me to use _his_ knowledge.”

“Oh God,” Jemma says, tears filling her eyes. She presses Fitz’s hand.

“Yeah. And he … he had pictures of you. Of the others. He knows about the, the Lighthouse.” Fitz looks at her, blinking repeatedly. “Jemma. They’re dangerous. They’re … They call themselves, um, Icarus.”

“Icarus,” she echoes, frowning.

He nods. He suddenly grimaces and grabs his bandaged shoulder. “They want to, to free the world of Inhumans. And more … there’s more … Ah,” he gasps in pain.  

“Fitz … you have to rest now,” Jemma tells him, stroking his unhurt shoulder. “You shouldn’t talk so much.”

Fitz sighs. He shakes his head. “He’s back,” he eventually says, his eyes filling with fear. “He … he told me what to do. To escape.”

“The Doctor?” Jemma asks, shuddering involuntarily.

“Yes. He’s … I killed people, Jemma,” Fitz says, looking up at her with tears in his eyes. “I … I almost killed my father. I almost … almost lost myself in there. I’m … I’m a danger for everyone of you … It would be better if you stay away from me …”  

Jemma’s heart fills with pain for him. She shakes her head, stroking his forehead comfortingly. “Fitz. You _saved_ yourself. And a little Inhuman girl. I’m glad you made it out of there. I’m glad you’re here now. And you know what? We won’t leave each other’s side anymore. I won’t ever let you fight alone again. I can’t … Fitz I can’t bear the thought of losing you.” _Again_ , she thinks, but doesn’t say out loud.

But Fitz looks at her like he knows. He raises a trembling hand, touching her cheek feather-lightly. “Jemma,” he whispers. “I’m sorry …”

Before she can answer him, his eyes slip shut again, and she lets him fall asleep. He needs rest. He needs it desperately now. She could sense his distress, when he was talking about The Doctor.

Jemma presses a soft kiss on Fitz’s forehead and, after a last look at him, leaves the room quietly.

She needs to tell the others …

*

“Icarus,” May says, frowning. “What’s that?” She’s sitting on one of the typical, uncomfortable hospital chairs and has the little girl, Eva, sitting in her lap. The Inhuman girl is nibbling on a finger, looking at them with wide eyes. May absently strokes her hair. Jemma is surprised at how quickly Eva seems to trust her. But then, she remembers Robin … May and kids is just working fine. They all took the information, that Eva is an Inhuman and apparently has wings quite composed. They seem more concerned about the rest Fitz told her.

She sighs at May’s question, wiping a lost strand of hair out of her forehead. “Apparently, it’s an organisation, that, um, wants to free the world of Inhumans.”

“Oh no. You want to tell me they’re the new Watchdogs?!” Daisy asks from where she’s leaning against the wall beside May, rolling her eyes.

Jemma shakes her head. “Regarding what Fitz managed to tell me, they’re more dangerous. He said, they know everything. They know about the Framework and … and Fitz’s role there. They also know us. Apparently, they tried to blackmail Fitz with pictures of us. They were watching the Lighthouse. They were watching us …”  
She shudders uneasily.

May frowns in concern. “It wouldn’t be a clever idea to return to the Lighthouse then … And if they know so much about us, they maybe know about other old SHIELD bases as well. We can’t go there without risking being attacked.”

“Were do we go then?” Jemma asks, concerned, restlessly shifting her weight. “Fitz needs rest. He’s … Well, he’s hurt and exhausted. And,” she hesitates, side-eying Daisy nervously. “I think his mental state is dangerously unstable now.”

She sees Daisy’s eyes darken, as the Inhuman involuntarily remembers.

May frowns.

Jemma clears her throat and continues. “He said he used the knowledge of the Framework to get out of there. He listened to his, um, hallucinations and had to do things, that made him feel guilty. He thinks he’s a danger to us now.” She swallows, suddenly realizing herself, how familiar this scenario sounds ...

Daisy sighs. “You think he could suffer a mental break again?” She asks Jemma, unconsciously reaching up to touch the place, where the inhibitor was removed …

Jemma carefully nods. “I think so … If he’s exposed to more stress now. But I think if he gets the chance to rest, to continue his therapy sessions and take his medication, he will get more stable again. It’s what he needs,” she says, turning to May with pleading eyes. “We can’t face him with another problem right now, or move him too much. He needs to be somewhere calm and familiar.”

May looks at her understandingly. “I get that, Simmons. I really do. I want that Fitz is able to rest and heal too. But we have to find a solution first. We can’t stay here in Scotland either. They know Fitz’s home and his therapist.”

“Maybe I have a solution for you.” They look at Hunter surprised, who’s standing behind them and hasn’t said something so far. “I don’t think those people know my place,” He tells them, crossing his arms. “We could go to Bobbi and mine safe house. It’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s calm and we have everything you need … Including computers and weapons of course.”

May raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? You and Bobbi started a new life there. A mostly peaceful life. We would bring the battle right back to you, maybe.”

Hunter shrugs. “Hey. You need a safe place. And Fitz needs rest. Of course, we’ll help you out, until we find another solution. Or you and me kick those bastards in the ass until there’s no danger left,” He tells May, winking at her.

May looks at him attentively for a moment, then she nods. “Thank you, Hunter.” She turns to Jemma, looking at her intensely. “We can’t leave Fitz’s mother here either. And his therapist. They’re all in danger now.”

Jemma nods. “I know. I’m going to talk to them together with Mack.”

She turns around and leaves. May looks after her for a moment, then she sighs. “You can go to the Zephyr and tell the rest about what we’re going to do,” she tells Daisy. I’m going to stay in Fitz’s room. Together with Eva.”

The girl, who is still nibbling on her finger, is looking up at her with wide eyes.

*

May looks at Fitz’s still face and feels reminded of something she has tried to hide in the deeper corners of her mind.

The memory of him dying in front of her eyes still manages to make her throat clench and let her heart throb in sharp, burning pain.

She quickly tries to push the horrible images back.

She needs to be clear headed now. She doesn’t know how near the danger already is … In case of an attack, she has to protect Fitz and the Inhuman girl.

She looks at Eva, who sits on the chair beside Fitz’s bed. She looks at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

May sighs, and decides to do some meditation. It will help her, to stay calm and alert.

She lays her jacket on the bedside table. From the corners of her eyes she sees Eva yawning.

“You can sleep,” May says and smiles at her. “It’s alright. As long as I’m here, nothing will happen to you, I promise.”

Eva looks up at her attentively. She has beautiful eyes, May thinks. Deep blue. They remind her of Fitz’s eyes. And like his, Eva’s have a shadow in them, that speaks of something sad and painful. After a moment’s hesitation, Eva crawls into bed, beside Fitz. She carefully lays her head on his chest, and closes her eyes.

It’s a touching sight.

May sighs. She looks at them one last time, then sits down on the floor.

  
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and starts her meditation.


	8. Safe House

Fitz is running through a dark, narrow hallway. It’s deathly silent around him. The only noises he hears are the quick tapping of his hasty steps and his shallow, hectic breaths.

Why is he even running? He wonders distantly.

He doesn’t really know.

He feels like he’s searching for something. But he can’t remember what it is …

The hallway seems to have no end. He runs past one closed door after the other. Everything looks the same. But then, he sees light coming from a room. He stops, breathing heavily. The door to this room is just ajar and after some hesitation, he slowly opens it further, his skin tingling in anticipation.

He takes some careful steps forward. A single bulb on the ceiling bathes the room he's entering in a gloomy twilight. Fitz looks around confused. The room is empty. Four walls around … nothing.

He takes a closer look at the grey walls and sucks in a sharp breath. Someone has drawn monkey faces on them. They’re grinning at him somehow demonically.

Fitz swallows. He suddenly feels sick. He knows he has to get out of here. But it seems like he’s frozen in place. He can’t move.

The light in the room seems to become brighter suddenly. He blinks as his eyes try to adjust and gasps at the sight in front of him. The room isn’t empty anymore. Suddenly, his father kneels on the floor in front of him, his face a mask of fear.

Fitz stares down at him, breathing heavily. He swallows, when all of a sudden, he feels the heavy weight of a gun in his hand. His hand, that is raised so that the gun is pointed at his father’s head.

He exhales shakily.

“Do it, Fitz,” a voice beside him says calmly.

Fitz startles and turns his head. He expects to see his own personal demon. The Doctor.

But it isn’t the ghost from The Framework.

It’s Grant Ward.

“Do it, Fitz,” he says. “He doesn’t deserve any better. As did my family. They are ash now. Ash to ash, dust to dust.”

Fitz swallows. He looks from Ward to his father. A sudden rush of hate threatens to overwhelm him. It’s pulsating inside of him, reminding him of all the pain his father has caused him and his mother over the years.

Ward smiles. “You feel it, don’t you, Fitz? The need for revenge. It’s bittersweet. You’ll feel better afterwards. Lighter …”

Fitz feels the perspiration trickling down his spine. He swallows hard.

His finger tightens around the trigger -

 

Fitz wakes up with a gasp.

He looks around frantically, exhaling in relief, as he realizes it was a nightmare. He wipes his sweaty face and flinches, as a sudden wave of pain rolls through his shoulder at the motion. He looks at it and sees a bandage wrapped around it. Oh. Right. He was shot. He’s in the hospital.

He was shot while he was trying to escape from a secret underground base …

Fitz grimaces and sinks back into the cushions. His body feels heavy and light at the same time. There’s a distant, steady throbbing in his head. He groans and lays his unhurt arm over his face, closing his eyes. Somehow, he feels, like he didn’t even sleep at all …

He remembers talking to Jemma, about Icarus and what he did to escape. He can’t remember everything that happened there. But he remembers how he almost shot his father and how it felt to point the gun at him … The dream was not far from reality, he thinks dully.

“Fitz.” A calm but urgent voice rips him from his somber thoughts.

Fitz startles slightly and opens his eyes. He sees May standing beside his bed. She looks down at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Surprised, Fitz sees, that she has Eva in her arms. The little girl holds on to May’s neck with both arms, blinking at Fitz sleepily from under her lashes. She wears clothes, that are too big for her. But at least they are clean. There’s no blood on them. Or snow …

Fitz swallows. “May. Is everyone alright? Where’s Jemma?” He asks, trying to sit up in bed a bit.

Jemma. With the thought of Jemma come the memories of the photographs and he starts to feel slightly sick.

“Jemma’s taking a nap, Fitz. Don’t worry. Mack and Daisy are with her,” May tells him.

“Okay,” Fitz murmurs relieved.

 _I guess she can’t stand being around you_ , a voice that sounds awfully familiar suddenly whispers inside his head. _She knows what you did and now she’s scared. They’re all scared of you. They think it might happen again. That you might snap and hurt someone again …_

Fitz groans. _No. Jemma said that she won't ever leave my side again …_

_She was coddling you, idiot. But deep inside, she knows exactly that you're broken beyond rapair ...  
_

“No,” he mumbles and presses a hand against his throbbing head.

“Fitz,” May says again. She’s eyeing him concerned.

He inhales deeply and tries to push through the fog of anxiety that threatens to overwhelm him. He concentrates on the thing, that needs to be solved. Their problem. Yes. There is a problem and he has to solve it … He has to pull himself together.

“Icarus, May,” he breathes. “They know … They know my mother is here … They know about the Lighthouse. What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to go to Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house,” May explains, stroking a hand over Eva’s back. “Jemma and Mack talked to your mother, Fitz. They told her what she needs to know. We’re going to transfer her into another hospital. A private one. A smaller one. Hunter contacted a few of his most trustworthy people. They will keep her safe, Fitz.”

He blinks, trying to process her words. His mother. She’s still recovering from her illness. He has to be there for her. The thought has something strangely soothing. Concentrating on someone else than himself feels better. “I need … I have to see her,” he mumbles, trying to sit up.

May frowns. “You shouldn’t move around too much yet, Fitz. Your wound …”

“I’m fine,” he says distractedly, now trying to get out of bed, groaning in pain. Sweat is already building on his forehead.

May sighs. She lays a hand on his unhurt shoulder and presses him back into the cushions. When Fitz makes a protesting noise, she says, “I’ll get you a wheelchair.”

He opens his mouth to object but closes it again when she glares at him, and nods in defeat.

 

*

 

His mother carefully touches the bandage at his shoulder with a worried sad look in her eyes. “Oh love,” she says. “I know you all won’t tell me about what’s going on exactly, to keep me safe and I got used to it over the years, but please promise me, that you aren’t in danger anymore.”

Fitz swallows. “I’m not,” he says softly and knows that it’s a lie. “I … I could escape and now we will take care of them. They won’t get to hurt you, mum. You will be safe with Hunter’s men. They’re really good.”

She shakes her head. "I'm not as concerned about me as I am about you, Leo. You said you were going to take a break and now you were hurt again. Are you really going to be alright?"

Fitz swallows. He can’t even dare to look into her eyes. There’s so much she doesn’t know. So much she can’t ever know. “Mum … Could you … Could we talk about something nice? Lets talk about our favourite memories of the past or something,” he begs her. _Tell me about the time when the things were still simple, and nothing was broken_ , he adds in silence.

She looks at him and then smiles. She strokes his hair. “Okay darling ..."

They talk for a while, until they’re both too tired to continue.

For a moment, before he says goodbye for an undefined amount of time, Fitz considers taking her with him.

But no.

It’s better if he stays away from her. It would be better if he stays away from everyone.

Not for the first time, he thinks of running away again.

When he’s on his own, he at least can’t be a risk for anyone close to him.

But he can’t even walk the few steps from his mother’s room to his own room right now. He has to let May push him through the busy hallways of the hospital in the wheelchair and almost falls asleep before she manages to help him back into his bed.

It’s pathetic.

He knows exactly, that this exhaustion doesn’t only come from his injury. He’s actually quite aware that he’s about to lose his mind. It happens quiet and unspectacularly, but it definitely happens. Later, when he's trying to fall asleep, he asks himself, if his other self has felt the same.

 

*

 

In the morning, a nurse comes to check on Fitz’s wound. She says something, but Fitz barely notices her. He stares at the figure that stands in front of him.

He closes his eyes for a moment. A hopeful part of him hopes, it will just disappear.

But when he opens his eyes again, he’s still there. The Doctor. He has a certain amused glee in his cold eyes. “Did you miss me?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Fitz groans, hiding his face in both hands and pressing his eyes shut again. “No …”

There’s a worried voice somewhere above him. He can’t make out what it’s saying. He doesn’t want to. He wants to disappear into the void. He wants silence and darkness. Everything but this.

When he dares to open his eyes again, he realizes he’s alone now. With the hallucination. Because that’s what it is. Just an hallucination … But still, he trembles with fear and feels sweat building on his forehead.  

The Doctor walks closer. He eyes Fitz mildly interested, as if he was an insect under a magnifying glass.

“You’re not here,” Fitz mumbles.

The Doctor smirks. “Yes I am. Because you want me to be here.”

Fitz shakes his head. “I … just go away. I don’t need you.”

The Doctor tilts his head. “But I was useful, wasn’t I? I helped you escaping and killing those morons …”

Fitz inhales sharply. He remembers the blood on his hands, his face and clothes. He groans. “I didn’t …” he starts, but The Doctor interrupts him.  

“You did. You killed them. _We_ killed them. Together. You held the gun. And you used my knowledge.” He glares at Fitz and raises his chin. “You know, if you weren’t so weak, we could have eliminated the threat. But because of you, the other members of your pathetic team are in danger now. How does that feel? To know you’re useless?” He asks. A spiteful smirk spreads on his face. “You know, I should have worked with them. They are right about the Inhumans, you know. This scum is a problem. An anomaly. Just some freaks with mutations …”

“Shut up,” Fitz snarls. He knows he shouldn’t talk to this hallucination. It’s pointless. It isn’t real. But oh it feels real, he thinks helplessly. The words cut into his heart like a hot, sharp knife. Weak. Useless … Broken.

Fitz hides his face in both hands and whimpers.

The Doctor laughs.

_Just go away … go away … go …_

He flinches, when someone lays a hand on his shoulder. “Fitz?”

It’s Teresa. The therapist is kneeling beside his bed, looking at him worriedly. Fitz exhales shakily. He feels both ashamed and relived, to not be alone anymore. He takes his trembling hands away from his face, but closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see _him_ standing there, laughing …

“Fitz. Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Teresa asks him calmly.

“He’s back,” Fitz whispers hoarsely, his eyes still closed tightly.  “He’s … The Doctor, he’s there. He talked to me. Told me I’m weak and, and …”

“He’s not real, Fitz. He’s an hallucination. You know that, right?”

“I know … I know, but I can’t … He’s back for a while now. First, I only heard him in my head. He … he told me what I have to do,” Fitz says, finally opening his eyes to look at Teresa desperately. “He told me how to … how to get out of there. And I did what he told me. I wasn’t always … I wasn’t always me, I think. I can’t remember everything I did in there, I … How is that even possible?!” He whines, scratching the back of his right hand furiously, barely noticing the sharp pain that follows when he breaks his skin. “I want this to stop,” he whispers helplessly.   

Teresa looks at him attentively. “Do you see him now?” She asks calmly.

Fitz takes a deep breath and carefully glimpses to the void beside Teresa. “No …” he says relived.

 _Doesn’t mean I’m gone_ , says The Doctor inside his head amused. 

Fitz groans and bangs a fist against his head firmly.

Teresa catches his wrist and frowns. “Is he talking to you right now?”

Fitz just nods. He doesn’t trust his voice.

“Try to take some deep breaths,” Teresa tells him, still holding his wrist, apparently taking his pulse.

He tries to obey, but it’s difficult. His breaths come in hectic, shallow It’s too much. He remembers Jemma’s stories about what happened to his other dead self, and panicks. What if The Doctor will take over and hurt someone? The thought makes his throat clench and now he can barely breath at all. He groans and starts to feel like he’s losing the connection to this reality. It’s terrifying.

Teresa lets go off his wrist and reaches into her bag. “I’m going to inject you an antipsychotic,” she says. “You will have to take your regular medications again and we have to continue our therapy sessions. But right now, you need rest."

When the words finally reach him and make sense, Fitz nods tiredly. He reaches his arm out and looks away. His frantic thoughts start to wander off. They somehow find Eva. Eva, who is scared and doesn’t say a word. Who looked at Fitz right after she sent her grandfather flying against a wall, as if she understands … as if she knows …

“Eva … you have to help her too,” he tells Teresa, raising his head from the pillow. “Her grandfather … locked her in a cage, because she’s Inhuman. She must have been so scared … Lonely. You are going to help her too, aren’t you?” He asks her urgently.

“I will talk to her,” the therapist says calmly, wiping a spot on Fitz’s arm with antiseptic.

“Good,” Fitz breathes and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the needle. He has never been fond of injections. As a child, he used to squirm so much at vaccinations, his mother had to held him, while the doctor gave him the shot. But later, when the tears have dried, she bought him his favourite ice cream. She never got angry with him about it. Never screamed at him. Unlike his father, who, as he recognized Fitz’s fear of needles and doctors in particular, thought he could take care of this “weakness” with a few well aimed smacks on his backside.

Fitz shudders involuntarily, right as Teresa injects the antipsychotic. It burns slightly, and he bites his lip. Memories … He wished there was a way to erase at least some of them …

When he opens his eyes again, Teresa hands him two pills and a glass of water. “Something to sleep,” she explains.

He accepts the pills and swallows them quickly. Then, he turns around, facing the wall, closing his eyes. Teresa asks him something, but the words get lost in the chaos that prevails in his mind.

Fortunately, the darkness reaches for him soon and pulls him into a dreamless, deep sleep.

 

*

 

When Teresa leaves Fitz’s room, the whole team looks at her questioningly.

“How is he?” Jemma asks anxiously.

“He’s sleeping now. The auditory hallucinations are back and today he had a visual one,” Teresa says, frowning. “He’s very agitated. No wonder after what he’s been through recently. We need to continue his treatment as soon as possible. I have to tell you that changes in his surroundings aren’t a good idea. He needs a calm place where he can stay and recover for at least a few months,” she explains.

May nods tightly. “He can stay at Bobbi and Hunter’s safe house. I can imagine that he will want to help us dismantling Icarus, but I won’t allow it. It’s enough. He will get the rest he needs now.”

The others nod in agreement. There’s a moment of silence. Daisy plays with her hair lost in thoughts, while Mack looks like he’s remembering something painful. Jemma looks into her empty cup of tea, frowning.

Finally, May clears her throat and looks at Teresa attentively. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but could you imagine accompanying us? He trusts you. And you know him and how to help him.”

Teresa smiles weakly. “Well. Fitz needs my help, so I won’t just leave him alone. Also you told me I could be in danger of being kidnapped by a secret criminal organisation if I stayed here. I'm not really fond of the idea to be tortured by some wannabe James Bond villains. But I hope you let me get some of my things before we leave in your, um, spaceship that Fitz designed.” She smiles a bit disbelieving.

May nods. “I’ll go with you.”

She looks at the rest of the team fiercely. “It’s time to pack, everyone. Get everything we need into the Zephyr. As soon as we’re back, we’re leaving. Hunter, take care of Fitz’s mother. Mack, you’re taking care that Fitz is transferred to the Zephyr without any complications. Daisy and Jemma, take Eva with you. I think she trusts you.”

They nod and burst into action, while May leaves with Teresa.

 

*

 

Jemma washes her hands thoroughly, looking into her tired eyes in the bathroom mirror.

Sometime, when her hands start to prickle from the hot water, she turns it off, supporting herself with both hands on the sink and lowers her head. She inhales deeply.

From outside, she can hear Daisy talking to Eva, who, of course, doesn't say anything back.

Jemma knows they're all busy, but she can't go back just now.

She needs a moment.

What happens to Fitz makes her heart clench with worry. He heard _and_ saw The Doctor. It's only one sign for how unstable he is. It involuntarily brings memories back ... Memories she rather wouldn't have. Fitz, holding the scalpel in front of his face, his eyes wide open, while Daisy struggles against the bonds that hold her to the table ...  
Jemma shakes her head. No. She needs to focus on the here and now.

Fitz needs her. She won't let him go through a psychotic split again.

 _It's not like last time anyway_ , she quickly tells herself. _He's receiving professional treatment now._

Still ... it doesn't make this any less painful. It's hurting her heart that he had to go through a traumatizing experience right when he was trying to get better. It's so unfair. It's like a last punch in the guts from the universe ...

And Icarus? They seem to plan something huge. They need to stop this organisation as quickly as possible. Apparently, they want what's inside Fitz's mind. Or rather, what was given to him through Aidas manipulation.

Jemma shudders. Who would have known that The Framework would haunt them for so long ...

She sighs and wipes her face. Right when she feels composed enough to go back to the others, Daisy opens the door carefully, blinking at her. "You're alright, Jemma? May is back and she says we're going to leave now."

Jemma nods, trying to smile, hoping it isn't more of a grimace. "I'm fine. Lets go."

She glances back to the mirror one last time, hoping she doesn't look as exhausted and worried as she's feeling right now.

 

*

 

Hunter and Bobbi’s house, that’s actually more of a hut, really is in the middle of nowhere.

It’s surrounded by beautiful wilderness. Green hills, deep forests and a beautiful lake, with clear, light blue water reflecting the clouds on the sky. There are high mountains in the distance, their tops covered in snow.

Fitz is still sleeping when the Zephyr lands on the meadow in front of the hut.

Mack carries him into the house, trying to hold back flashbacks of the last time he held Fitz in his arms. Back then, he was cold as marble stone, his face spotted with blood. He will never forget the emptiness he had felt in his heart in that moment. The worst is, that it almost happened again. In that petrol station, Fitz was laying on the ground, lifeless and bloody. A horrible Déjà vu.

Mack shakes the thoughts off and concentrates on Fitz’s soft, slow breaths. His weight and his warmth – the sure signs of him being alive.

Jemma walks beside him, carrying two suitcases. From time to time, she throws a worried glance at Fitz.

May follows them on the step, holding Eva’s hand. Teresa walks beside her. After them come Elena and Daisy with Davis and Piper, carrying the rest of their belongings and gear.

Bobbi opens the door, a smile on her face, that falters slightly, when she sees Fitz hanging motionless in Mack’s arms. “Sleeping,” Mack mouths, and she nods tightly.

“Come in,” she murmurs, holding the door open, hugging Daisy and Jemma when they’re passing her, smiling at Teresa, and laying a hand on May’s shoulder. When she sees the little girl, that is holding on to May’s hand, she smiles down at her. “And who are you, little one?” She asks kindly.  
The girl grabs May’s hand tighter and starts to chew on her lip.

“This is Eva. Fitz rescued her …”

“Hunter told me,” Bobbi says quietly. “I’m going to show you your rooms and then we can talk about what happened and what's going to happen next."

May nods. She squeezes Eva’s hand and follows Bobbi inside the hut with her.

 

*

 

“This is your room,” May tells Eva, leading her into one of the smaller rooms of the hut. "You can sleep here."

Eva looks up at her with wide eyes. After a moment, she lets go off May's hand and sits down on the bed carefully. She pats the soft blanket on it with her hands, an unreadable expression on her face. She looks around the room, looking small and unsure.

May watches her, leaning against the doorframe. The girl reminds her a lot of Robin. Robin, who is still with her mum, in a safe place now. She misses the girl often. Especially because she knows, what images Robin has inside her head. Images of her and May, being more than what they are now.

She is interrupted in her thoughts, when Hunter appears and asks her something. She turns to him and lets Eva out of her gaze.

 

When May looks back into Eva’s room a moment later, the little girl is gone.

May frowns. She starts searching but isn't too worried. It's a small house and a even smaller, scared girl. She can't be far.

 

She finds Eva in Fitz’s room. She’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at him, a finger in her mouth and her body rocking slightly back and forth.

May sighs and walks into the room. She takes a look at Fitz herself. His face looks calm in his sleep. She hopes the drug induced sleep can give him back some energy. “Fitz is going to sleep for a while, darling. He needs the rest,” she tells Eva, who looks up at her with wide eyes. Eva looks back to Fitz and makes a quiet noise.

“He’s going to be fine,” May says. She carefully lays a hand on Eva’s shoulder. “Come on. Lets go to the kitchen. I’m sure Bobbi has something to eat you would like." _And I really want to run her a bath_ , she adds in silence, wrinkling her nose. _I don’t want to think about when she had one the last time …_

Eva looks at her uncertainly, still chewing on her finger.

“Come on,” May says with a smile, holding her hand out to the girl.

Finally, after a last glance back at Fitz, she stands up and grabs May’s hand with her little, warm fingers.

 

*

 

Down in the kitchen, May finds something she’s sure every child loves: A chocolate bar.

“Here,” she unwraps the bar and hands it to Eva.

The girl takes it, looking at it from all sides. Finally, she takes a tentative bite of it and chews for a long time. Suddenly, her eyes widen and start to sparkle. She hums in a happy tone and takes another bite.

May watches, involuntarily smiling. Chocolate. Sometimes it’s like magic, isn't it …

When Eva finished eating, May pats her back carefully. “Now, I’d like to run you a bath, alright, darling?”

Eva frowns in confusion, but she takes May’s hand again, following her up the stairs to the bathroom.

May reaches across the large tub there and turns on the water. She tests the temperature, taking care that the water is neither too cold or too hot. Then she puts soap and a soft washcloth into the tub.

Eva watches her, now slowly lapping chocolate off her fingers.

When the tub is filled, May turns the water off and looks at Eva. “Can you take off your clothes for me, darling?” She asks smiling.

Eva stops licking her fingers. Her eyes widen and suddenly, she looks fearful. The next moment, she recoils into a corner, sinking to the ground and hugging herself, while whimpering quietly.

May swallows, feeling her heart clenching at the sight.

“Hey Darling,” she whispers, carefully reaching a hand out to Eva. “No one’s going to hurt you … I promise.”

But Eva shakes her head and recoils even further. And when May sees the look in the girl’s eyes, she finally understands. _She’s not scared of me hurting her … she’s scared she’s going to hurt me_ , she thinks, completely taken aback by that fact.

She thinks back to Fitz’s words about wings and cages ... Of course. They told her she’s dangerous … A monster that has to be locked in so people won’t get hurt.

She feels disgust and rage stirring in her.

Again, she reaches out her hand and smiles as calming as she’s able to right now. “It’s alright, darling. You’re not going to hurt me, I promise. And I’m not going to hurt you. We’re just going to cleanse you a bit. The warm water will feel good on your skin, trust me.”

Eva whimpers again, but May sees her body relaxing a bit. The girl seems to think very hard for a while, her eyes switching back and forth between May and the bath. Finally, Eva exhales softly and grabs the offered hand. She hesitantly follows May to the full tub.

May helps the girl taking her clothes off, shocked at how skinny the little thing actually is. Every rib is well pronounced. May carefully picks the girl up and puts her slowly down into the water while mumbling soothing words all the while. Eva flinches slightly, when her skin meets the warm water, but it doesn’t seem to be too hot. Finally, the girl is in the water all the way.

May sits down beside the tub, watching the girl running her hands through the water and foam in silent fascination. She tips her finger against one of the big soap bubbles around her and it bursts. Eva inhales sharply, her eyes widening in surprise. She hesitates, then does the same thing with another bubble. And suddenly, a silent, careful giggle escapes her.

May feels her heart warm up at the innocent sound. Finally, Eva looks like the little child she is, her eyes widened and sparkling in a happy, wondering glee, a small smile on her face.

She looks at May, pointing at the bubbles, still giggling helplessly.  

May smiles at her. “You see? Everything’s going to be alright, little one,” she breathes, reaching out to stroke Eva’s hair. “It’s going to be alright.”

 

*

 

“I can help.”

“No.”

“May …”

“No.”

Fitz stares defiantly up at May, who stands in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest, her face fierce. “You’re going to stay right here, Fitz. In this bed,” she says emphatically. “You’re hurt and exhausted. And mentally unstable. You need rest.”

He looks hurt, but she knows exactly, that he knows she's right.

She can’t believe he’s still that stubborn, after everything that happened. Two days passed since they arrived at Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house. Fitz slept for one whole day. When he woke up, he was disoriented and almost suffered another panic attack. Jemma managed to calm him down and Teresa talked with him about how they would go on, starting him on his medications again. First, it seemed like Fitz wouldn’t even consider to take part in dismantling Icarus, but now he’s sitting up in bed, glaring at May and demands to go with them.

May guesses it’s because he thinks the team is in danger because of him. His guilt is so strong it outbalances his care for his own wellbeing.

“I can’t just lay here,” he growls in frustration. “They threatened Jemma. They … they threatened all of you. And my mother. Teresa. I have to stop them. I …”

“We’re going to stop them, Fitz. Trust me. You’re no help for anyone in this state. Allow yourself to heal. I don’t want you to push yourself further than you already had to. You can now continue, what you started in Scotland. Go on with your therapy and get better.”

“But,” Fitz starts, his voice sounding desperate now. “But I …”

“Mate … May is right,” Hunter says from where he’s leaning against the doorframe, a rifle already hanging loosely over his shoulder. “No offense, but you look like you went to hell and back again. You did enough. Let us do the rest.”

“You’re in danger because of me,” Fitz murmurs, shaking his head and looking at his hands. “I should have done more. I should have eliminated the threat.”

“Alone?” May asks, frowning. “Fitz …”

“ _He_ could have done it,” Fitz says, his eyes narrowing. “I’m bloody useless. Weak and …”

“Fitz. Stop,” May says in a commanding voice. She shakes her head. “This is pointless. You were alone, and you did what you could. You did even more than that. Please stop being so hard on yourself and think about your own wellbeing.”

She doesn’t tell him that she feels sorry for having him left alone in Scotland. The guilt gnaws on her mercilessly. She should have noticed, she thinks. She should have noticed the danger.

But she’s not going to fail again.

She will eliminate the threat to her team, her family. No matter what.

She just wished, Phil was here too. Phil and his calm, strong presence. But it’s no use living in the past … Not now.

“Rest,” she tells Fitz again, firmly. She sees his body slump and knows this battle is over.

She nods at him one last time.

Then, she leaves the room with Hunter.

 

*

 

“You’re sure everyone’s safe after we’re leaving?” May asks Hunter, frowning.

Hunter nods and throws some more weapons into a wooden box in the back of his van. “Bobbi will stay here. Also, I advised some of my friends to patrol around the house. They’re all mercenaries, who were once in the army. Well trained and loyal. I trust them with my life.”

May sighs. “Good.”

“Who’s going with us?” Hunter asks her.

“Daisy, Mack, Davis and Piper. Jemma will stay with Fitz. That’s the best for everyone right now.”

“Alright. Where do we start?”

“We don’t have much information. We only know, that they’re somewhere in Canada. They can’t be that far from the petrol station we picked Fitz and Eva up. Fitz said something about a large lake. Apparently, they were under water.”

Hunter nods grimly. He shuts the trunk with a loud bang. “Alright. Let’s find and bust this nest of assholes.”

 

*

 

Magnus knows this isn’t going to end well.

He stands in a dark room, surrounded by Icarus’s best men.

In front of him, mostly hidden in the shadows, stands their leader. Magnus can almost sense the man’s anger. He swallows and plays with his hands nervously. When the leader finally speaks, the old man flinches in fear.

“Let me get this straight, Magnus. You let the man escape, who not only could give us tons of information about Inhumans, but also has the exact information about a certain machine, I’m needing. And that’s not all, isn’t it? He escaped _together_ with your Inhuman grandchild”

Magnus nods. He lowers his head, not daring to look into the eyes of the man in front of him. He takes a deep breath. “I … I was taken by surprise, Sir. If you would give me a second chance … I will sort this mess out. I swear …”

“You were blind,” the other man interrupts him coldly. “Blind. Arrogant. Naïve. It was a mistake to give in in your request to handle this alone …”

“Sir …”

“He shot ten of my men, Magnus. Ten. All because you couldn’t keep your personal interests out of this. The emotions, you still feel for this … this _Inhuman_ scum,” he all but spits out the word and Magnus flinches, “They made you weak and careless.”

The man shifts in the shadows.

“My men couldn’t find them, Magnus. Their tracks lost in the snow. You do realize what this means? It means that he made it back to his pathetic team. That he told them about us, Magnus. Right now, they’re maybe already planning how to find us. You endangered our plans … our goals. And why? Because of your selfish stupid dreams of curing your Inhuman grandchild.”  
The man laughs coldly and unamused. “But the truth is, Magnus … they can’t be cured. And they don’t need to be cured. I want them dead.” He pauses and sighs audibly. It sounds almost regretful. “Magnus … what you did, is inexcusable. You know how I handle such … disappointments.”

Magnus swallows hard. His subconscious already senses where this is leading to. He raises both hands to beg. “Please, Sir. Please let me … let me try to …”

“No Magnus. Your services aren’t needed anymore,” the figure in the shadows says. In the matter of a heartbeat he raises his hand that holds a gun. A single shot echoes in the room. Magnus falls. His body lands on the floor with a mild thud. Blood slowly pools around his head.

The man in the shadows puts the gun away and clears his throat.

“Back to the good old methods,” he explains to the men surrounding him. “Less talking, more pain. I want them back. No matter what. I don’t care if the Inhuman scum is dead or alive, but don’t dare to kill the engineer. A body can’t spill any secrets.”

The other men nod and leave the room without a further glance at the body on the floor.

 


	9. The Solution

Fitz wakes up to the soft singing of birds and the smell of pancakes.

He frowns. It takes a moment until he remembers where he is.

Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house, somewhere in the wilderness. When he glances out of the window, he sees meadows and mountains under a light blue almost cloudless sky. It’s a postcard worthy sight.

Eva is sitting on the edge of his bed, playing with a stuffed animal. It’s a giraffe. She’s running her fingers over the fur carefully, turning the toy to look at it from all sides, a concentrated frown on her face.

She reminds him a lot of Robin, with her seriousness, that’s sometimes broken by childlike innocence.

Fitz raises his head and groans. He has a headache.

Eva looks at him, her eyes widening a bit.

“It’s alright,” Fitz tells her, his voice hoarse. “Don’t worry.”

She eyes him a moment longer, then focuses back on the plush toy, starting to nibble at one ear.

Fitz’s lips twitch. He did that too. With his plush monkeys. Long ago. In the past.

“Ah. You’re awake.”

Bobbie comes into the room, carrying a tray with two plates and steaming mugs on it. She puts it on the bedside drawer carefully and looks at Fitz attentively. “Let me take a look at your wound.”

“Alright,” Fitz mumbles and tries to sit up, only to notice immediately, that his limbs don’t cooperate at all. His unhurt arm is trembling under his weight.

He’s too weak. When he realizes he won’t manage to move, he slumps back into the pillows, a frustrated groan escaping his throat.  

When did he become so useless. It’s embarrassing.

He doesn’t complain when Bobbi helps him to sit up against the pillows without a comment and carefully takes off the bandage around his shoulder.

She looks at the wound and takes an antiseptic to wipe away dried blood. She nods satisfied. “No infection. It’s healing fine. But you need to stay in bed and rest for a while longer.”

She wraps a fresh bandage around his shoulder and nods towards the tray. “Pancakes and tea.

Fitz nods and leans back against the pillows. “Where’s Jemma?” He asks.

“She’s still sleeping,” Bobbi sighs. “I had to force her to out of that chair to go get some rest. I bet otherwise she would have stayed here the whole night.”

Fitz glances at said chair, that is standing beside his bed. It looks uncomfortable.

He can almost see Jemma in it, sitting there, anxiously staring at him. How often did she have to sit beside his bed, while he was either injured or sick or something? Too often. She shouldn’t have to worry so much.

He notices that Bobbi looks at him in that certain way that makes him think she might know what’s going through his mind, and he looks away, out of the window, where the sky is darkening, now filled with a few greyish clouds that certainly announce a fierce downpour.  

“Where are the others?” He asks, although he thinks he might already know the answer. And he doesn’t like it.  

“They’re searching for Icarus,” Bobbi says, confirming his suspicion.  

Fitz shudders involuntarily. Memories threaten to overwhelm him again. The dying Inhuman. Shooting. His father. Shooting. Eva. A man with a mask, watching him from the shadows – _what?_

Fitz frowns.

A man with a mask has never been in his memories before. He tries to go back to this image … But he can’t. It’s blurry. And it faints in the shadows of the other memories.

Of which he is ripped out, when Bobbi speaks again. “They’re just another Inhuman hating organisation, right?”

Fitz sighs and shakes his head. “Yes, they do hate Inhumans. But … They’re not like Hydra. And also not like the Watchdogs. They are like a combination of both, I guess. But worse.” He takes a sip of his tea and narrows his eyes. “I still don’t understand how they could know that much about the Framework. About The Doctor. About what I … he did there.”

“Maybe they kidnapped a member of Shield and got the information from them?” Bobbi muses.

Fitz frowns. That could be a possible solution. Only that he can’t imagine who that Shield member should be. He would need a lot of insight in everything the team was involved in.

Bobbi lays a hand on his shoulder. “You should try to not to worry too much now. We will sort this out. Eat something. You need the energy.”

She looks at Eva, who is watching them, and smiles warmly. “You too, darling. You’re way too thin for my liking.”

They arrange the tray, so that it’s resting on Fitz’s lap, in reach for both him and Eva. Fitz is pleased to see, that there’s even a half full bottle of maple syrup.

“I hope you like them,” Bobbi smiles. “Hunter is basically addicted to them.” She leaves the room with a little wave.

Eva stares at the pancakes. She looks up to Fitz with raised eyebrows.

Fitz smiles at her. “Pancakes are great. Especially when you put a lot of syrup on them. Here.” He squeezes a generous amount of the golden liquid on Eva’s pancakes, who watches with wide eyes.

Fitz cuts her pancakes into biteable pieces and nods at her invitingly. “Come on. Try it.”

Eva grabs a piece of pancake with her fingers, takes a careful bite and chews a little while. When she swallows, she licks her lips and her lips twitch into a vague smile.

“Good?” Fitz asks.

Eva nods and her eyes start to sparkle. She continues eating, quite quickly. Fitz doesn’t tell her to slow down. He’s too happy to watch her. He barely eats any of his own pancakes. He just doesn’t feel like it.

When Eva’s finished, Fitz catches the longing glance she throws at his remaining pancakes. He gives them to her, glad that she found something she likes so much. Something good in the dark world she knows. Fitz watches her eating, feeling the strong urge to protect her.

He looks up surprised when there’s a soft knock against the doorframe.

It’s Jemma.

She is standing there, looking at him fondly. It’s the certain kind of look that only she gives him.

His heart jumps in his chest and he automatically starts to feel warmer. But then he remembers what he did to her. What pain he caused her this time, and the warmth starts to fade again, making place for the cold exhaustion, he’s feeling all the time now.

“Hey,” Jemma says softly and smiles at him.

“Hey.” More won’t come out. A single syllable feels like too much already.

Jemma approaches his bed and looks at the bandage around his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

She nods understandingly. “Of course. But after a few good rounds of sleep, you should feel better soon.”

Fitz nods, although he isn’t convinced. “How are you?” He asks her.

_You know it already. She’s sad and concerned. Because of you._

“Just a bit exhausted,” Jemma says. “You know that I always have troubles sleeping in a completely new environment. However, I wanted to tell you that Bobbi is going to a village nearby. To buy some new, better fitting clothes for Eva. And some other things. I’m going to go with her. Maybe I’ll find some prosciutto.” She smiles.

Fitz forces himself to smile back, although he doesn’t feel like he has the energy for it. “Okay.”

She kisses him.

Feather lightly. On the forehead.

He closes his eyes and wishes they could be somewhere else. Or _somewhen_.

“I love you,” she says before she leaves.

“I love you too,” he says automatically, and adds, I’m sorry, in silence.

Eva looks at him attentively, and lays her small hand a little closer to his own, trembling one.

*

Teresa comes later that afternoon.

Eva is sitting on the floor, drawing. Bobbi gave her a full pack of crayons, and now the little girl is trying out every single one, drawing lines and circles, with a happy glee in her eyes.

Fitz watches her from the bed, his mind wonderfully blank.

So he isn’t exactly glad to see his therapist, who nods towards the pill bottle on the bedside drawer.

“Are you taking your medication again?”

“Yeah,” Fitz answers absently.

“Are you feeling any side effects?”

“Not really. I’m just feeling dead exhausted the whole time. But I guess that’s the result of everything that happened lately.” Fitz shrugs. He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to feel. He doesn’t want to _be_.

Maybe Teresa feels it, because she smiles at him and says softly, “We can talk later, if you’re feeling more up to it then.”

Fitz just nods, feeling grateful.

Eva is the best company right now. Silent. Undemanding.

Sometime Fitz’s thoughts go back to the man with the mask. The image is still blurred. But it’s there. Why? He asks himself.

Someone answers. It sounds a lot like The Doctor. Spiteful. Lurking.

 _The answer is right under your nose._ _Too bad you don't see it._ _Maybe you will sometime, but then it'll be too late._

 _Shut up,_ Fitz thinks and closes his eyes, massaging his temples with his thumbs. _Just shut up ..._

*

Sometime around late evening, Fitz is woken up by a high-pitched scream.

He sits up in bed too quickly, groaning when his hurt shoulder throbs in pain.

He looks around and sees Eva, still laying beside him. But she’s pressing both hands on her ears and is crying. Her small body is trembling.

“Eva,” Fitz says softly, carefully touching her shoulder.

She flinches and turns around to face him, her eyes wide and teary.

“Nightmare?” He asks.

She nods frantically, shuffling closer to press her face against his chest.

“It’s alright. You’re save. No one’s going to hurt you anymore,” Fitz whispers in her ear and rocks her carefully. “I’m going to protect you …”

Soon her breaths get slower and even. He knows then that she fell back asleep.

Fitz strokes her back and remembers her ability. The wings …. He wonders when exactly they come out. When Daisy has been stressed, she had quaked her surroundings. But Eva’s powers don’t seem to work that way.

He involuntarily remembers the cage she has been sitting in and shudders in disgust.

The memories start to flood his mind again and he groans, knowing it’s going to be almost impossible to fall asleep again.

He almost considers calling Teresa and asking her for a sleeping pill. But then Eva moves even closer to him, pressing her body flat against his. He wraps her arms around her and listens to her breaths.

They calm him down.

He listens and tries to tell himself that it’s alright to fall asleep, to lose control.

They are safe here. Hunter’s men are good. He knows that. Hunter wouldn’t send them someone he didn’t trust without a doubt. And Bobbi is a one-woman army. There’s nothing to fear. Beside his own demons.

Fitz closes his eyes and allows his mind to drift off, back to sleep.

 

*

  
Daisy doesn’t have a good feeling about this.

They’ve found the base Fitz must have been talking of quite quickly. It seemed to be empty and they decided to separate, to inspect it.

Which maybe wasn’t such a good idea.

Now she’s walking through a narrow hallway, water dripping from the ceiling on her head. It’s freezing. She asks herself, if Fitz walked this way too and shivers. 

Daisy stops, when she hears a strange noise coming from her walkie.

It sounds like a choked off scream.

Daisy presses the walkie against her ear and frowns.

“Guys?” She whispers, worry stirring in her. “Guys!”

The stupid water is trickling down her neck, making her shudder.

She listens to the static rushing coming out of the walkie so intensely, hoping someone would say something, that she doesn’t hear the slow steps approaching her from behind.

“Guys, this isn’t funny,” she murmurs.

The next moment something hits her hard on the head and everything goes black.

*

When Daisy opens her eyes, there’s nothing but sharp coldness around her. She gasps and her lungs are burning.

The next moment, she realizes, she’s bound. Chains around her wrists and ankles are holding her to the wall behind her. She groans. Great. Just great. Well. She’s going to get out of this somehow.

She tries to use her powers just to experiment, and cries out in pain, when instead of a quake, a sharp pain follows, rushing through her whole body.

“What the …”

“Those are our power-supressing chains. Quite effective, aren’t they?” A voice says from the dark and she freezes.

Oh great. She’s in the chamber of a madman apparently.

The next moment, a man steps out of the shadows. He’s wearing a long dark robe. A mask covers half of his face. He seems to be quite young, maybe her age. His eyes are light blue and cold like ice.

“Daisy Johnson,” he says and it sounds almost reverently. “What a pleasure to meet you in person. I’m Icarus.”

Daisy snorts. “Wow, you know, you’re kind of edgy,” she says dryly.

 _Icarus._ _So it isn’t an organisation, but a person?_ She muses.

“I guess you are the new Inhuman hating Nazi?” She asks.

She sees the man’s mouth moving behind the mask and knows he’s smiling. “I’m not a Nazi. And I don’t hate Inhumans. But I think they are lost. And you’re definitely lost, because you’re going to die today.”

She rolls her eyes. “I'll get out of here. Either by myself or my team is going to save me,” she says pointedly. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with.”

“Oh trust me. I know exactly who you are.” He comes closer slowly, until he stands right in front of her. He looks at her arms, and runs a finger over her braces.

“Fascinating,” he says softly.

“Don’t touch me,” Daisy spits and tries to squirm away. But that only causes the cuffs to do whatever they did, and she groans in pain. What are those things …

Icarus looks at her knowingly. “That’s just one of the many inventions we were able to make because of the valuable information about the Framework. What a great world. A pity that it wasn’t real.”

She frowns. Ah yes. Now she remembers that Fitz told them Icarus knew an awful lot about everything concerning Shield and The Framework.

“How did you get the information? About the Framework. About what happened to Fitz there?” She asks him directly.

Icarus smiles. “Oh. The solution was right under your nose the whole time. Too bad you’re too blind to see it.”

Daisy frowns.

Icarus hums. He takes a step back to look into her eyes and raises an eyebrow. “To find the solution is not that difficult. Just think … Who might know best about what happened in the Framework? Maybe the one who is to blame for its existence.”

Daisy’s heart seems to miss a beat, as her brain starts to put the pieces of information together.

No.

That can’t be.

It’s impossible.

She knows the disbelief is showing on her face, because Icarus laughs quietly. “Like I said. Directly under your nose. Oh. Don’t worry if he could have turned on you, like Grant Ward did. _He_ didn’t have a choice. Not really. I think you’re seeing it now, but let’s start a bit earlier. I want you to understand. I’ve been watching your organisation for quite a while. I always knew Shield wasn’t gone. That you just hid in the shadows. And I started to think about a way to get more information about Inhumans. I’m a talented hacker, you know. I gathered a lot of important data, but it was never really enough to do anything about the problem. But recently, I have managed to kidnap one of the Koenigs. It was quite easy, to be honest.”

He chuckles, when Daisy gasps shocked.

“He acted as heroic as you in the beginning. But after a while, he sang like a bird. They all do, with the right kind of motivation. That’s something Magnus never wanted to understand … Anyway, he gave me names. A lot of names. And backstories. So many backstories.”

His eyes sparkle in glee.

Daisy shudders involuntarily. She feels numb. She wants this to be a nightmare …

Icarus continues talking in his monotonous, calm tone. “I wrote down everything he told me. It’s a big folder now. And furthermore I started to gain more followers every day. Some were old Hydra agents or members of the Watchdogs, searching for something new, something that would make their life worth living again. I didn’t care where they came from. I welcomed everyone who hated Inhumans. Because I knew, every single person would help to bring me closer to my final goal.”

He smirks.

“Give them a dramatic name, and a tragic backstory. A cult. Someone to hate. And they will believe in you. They will do anything.  
Anyway, Koenig told me a lot about Fitz. I quickly realized he would be valuable for me. And that he would be the most vulnerable one. Easy to break.”

He makes a vague hand gesture and Daisy feels so much hot raging anger, that she thinks it’s going to make her burst.

“Koenig only told me some basics about The Framework and everything that happened because of the Darkhold. I wanted to know more about it. I felt it was important. So I planned to kidnap Fitz too.  
I managed to seek out his father, Alistair, who had stopped drinking and was working for some company, as robotic engineer. I told him, I could bring his son back to him. He agreed to work for me and help me. When my men told me Fitz had returned to Scotland, I saw my chance.

First, I thought the sight of his father would be enough to make him break and go with Alistair, but agent May ruined it. She was a problem … She had to disappear first. Gladly she did. After she prevented Fitz from running away again, unfortunately. But then she left, and I started to plan how I could get to him without much trouble. I let him be observed by my men. He didn’t seem to notice most days. But once … Once he managed to get rid of them and almost killed them with a knife, in an alleyway. He asked them who they were working for. They told him and he wanted to talk to me. Of course, that wasn’t Fitz, but rather his alternate persona, he must have switched into The Doctor because of some trigger. We were talking quite a while. He told me he gladly would share his knowledge and abilities, if I helped him to punish the people who took the love of his life from him. I think he said her name was Ophelia.”

Icarus looks at Daisy pointedly.

“You see. I knew The Doctor before he killed a few of my minions – useless ones, really – and stole that girl from poor, stupid Magnus. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay this way and I had to think of a way, to get the Framework memories anyway.”

“No,” Daisy whispers. Fear and disbelief make her throat feel tight. She feels like she can’t breathe. She’s going to choke on this … “No. That can’t be. He was getting better. He took medication and went to therapy ...”

“He thought so, yes. The pills he took weren’t antipsychotics, Daisy Johnson. They were placebos. And his therapist isn’t his therapist anymore. Not really. I was inspired by what my captive told me. She’s an LMD. A quite good one, I think. Perfect even. Alistair helped me. We’re quite proud of this creation.”

Daisy wants to vomit. Right here and now. She can’t do anything but stare at the man in front of her, who seems so pleased with how everything’s going. The truth is a black hole without end, and it swallows her whole. “No,” she breathes. “That can’t be … You’re lying!”

“I’m not. I guess you underestimated how unstable your friend is. Really, I thought after everything that had happened in the other timeline, you would be … more careful. But you just let him leave.  
After our talk, I hoped he would come to me by himself. But it didn’t work, so I let him be kidnapped, hoping the appearance of his father would cause another switch. It didn’t. Maybe, because Alistair acted like he thought he still could redeem his actions from the past.”

Icarus makes a disgusted noise.

“Since The Doctor didn’t appear again, I decided to hide in the shadows and let someone else do the work. Of course, Magnus thought he could use this chance, to try to get a cure for his disgusting Inhuman relative. As if there’s any cure for this abomination … Anyway, I let him do what he wanted, because I knew, Fitz wouldn’t do anything that included hurting someone. But he would be conflicted. And that was what I needed. I watched him getting away with the girl and knew he would be even more vulnerable after this. Now I’m way closer to what I want. Being patient pays off.”

He stops talking, his eyes glowing in triumph.

Daisy shakes her head. “He would have told me,” she presses out. “Would have told us if something like this talk between you two had happened!”

Icarus looks at her with an expression in his eyes, that could have been pity. “It’s Dissociative Identity Disorder, Daisy Johnson. He doesn’t remember. This time there was no one, who could have snapped him out of it. He was alone.”

He sighs in mocked sadness. “He’s really kind of a tragedy, don’t you think?”

“You bastard!” She struggles against her bonds again. Her mind screams no and her heart yells for something that proves that this is nothing but a heap of lies. It can’t be … When he’s saying the truth, everyone at the Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house could be in danger. Teresa being a LMD that could be programmed, Fitz being on the edge of another breakdown with The Doctor who would remember Icarus and what he promised, and Eva, who is supposed to be nothing but a trigger for exactly that threatening psychotic split. It’s disgusting. It’s a nightmare. A mess.

Icarus watches her calmly, as she tries to gather her thoughts.

Eventually he leans forward and his cold light blue eyes focus on her with grim satisfaction glowing inside them. “Everything that happens now, Daisy Johnson, happens because I want it to. It’s all part of my plan. I’m going to get Fitz back, in the way and form I need him. I just have to get him away from everyone that still cares about him. And you can’t stop me.”

Daisy grits her teeth. “I beg to differ,” she says coldly. “We stopped people like you in the past. Worse people. And if you dare to come close to Fitz, to anyone of my team or to Eva, I’ll kill you. It’s as simple as that.”

Icarus tilts his head. “We’ll see.”

He goes to the wall and his finger lingers over a button. “When I press this button, water will flood this room,” he explains calmly. “It will take some time until it rises to a dangerous level, let’s see how you get out of this situation, Daisy Johnson. Maybe I will be disappointed. But maybe not.”

Daisy swallows. This isn’t good. She doesn’t know where the others are. She has to get out of here. She has to get back to Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house. To Fitz.

She has to gain some extra time …  

“You still didn’t tell me _why_ ,” she says quickly. “Why are you doing this. There must be a reason. I want to know.”

He looks at her and raises an eyebrow. “You want to know, even if you’re about to die?”

Daisy nods.

Icarus smiles joylessly. “Ah yes, _Shield_. You always think you can save everyone, don’t you? Well. Too bad you don’t know about all your organisation’s failures. Shield is not the saviour in my story, Daisy Johnson. Quite the contrary.”

And Daisy gets it then. She reads it in his words and eyes.

“You lost someone,” she states.

Icarus throws her a dark glance, that makes her shudder.

“Wrong. I lost _everyone_ ,” he clarifies tonelessly.

“What happened?” Daisy asks.

His eyes narrow. She can see his jaw working behind the mask.

“You really want to know the story?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. You shall hear it then.”

He slowly pulls the mask off his face.  

Daisy gasps.

The skin around his mouth is completely scarred. It looks like burns. Severe burns.  

He leans against the wall behind him, preparing to tell a story. And for the first time, there’s something else than coldness and determination in his eyes. There’s memory and pain.

“My younger sister,” he says. “She meant everything to me. She was a gifted child. So talented. And smart … she always wanted to be more. More than me. More than my parents. And I could understand her.

My mother took drugs and didn’t get away from them, no matter how often she tried. My father lost his job and also his will to do anything. Most of the day he spent on the couch, in front of the tv, wearing his underwear. They didn’t care much about school.

And neither did I, at some point. I had to take care of my younger sister and had to make sure, we would have something to eat at the end of the day. Although my teachers told me I’m smart and I should make something out of my life, I started to do illegal things.  
But no matter what I did, and how many problems I had with the wrong kind of people or the police, my sister always loved me. I know it. And I gave it back to her. I told her to go on being the best in class, when my parents didn’t care about her great marks, I praised her.

Then came the day, it all went to hell.

She wanted to apply to university. She had already written a lot of applications. And I was sure, she wouldn’t have any problems to get accepted.

But then came Terrigenesis. I saw it happen. And I didn’t know what to do. She screamed at me. Begged me to help her. She was crying. I watched her disappearing behind stone, frozen to place.

When I could move again, I punched the stone, trying to get her out. I even tried to use a knife. But I slipped, hurting my jaw.

When she finally came back, I couldn’t believe it. I was frozen to place again. She was looking up at me and she gasped, when she saw I was bleeding. She raised a hand and touched me. And that was when it happened. A flame came from her hand. It was blue and all I felt was hotness. Then pain. She screamed. I screamed. She couldn’t get her hand off my face. Until I pushed her back. She fell. Her hands, her burning hands, set the flat on fire.

I was half crazy because of the pain, but I managed to pull her out of the flat. I wanted to go back in, to save our parents. But it wasn’t possible. Everything was burning. We sat on the street, her hands still burning, melting the asphalt, and watched the fire.

Then, Shield came. They were quick. I don’t know how they managed to be so quick. Not back then.

A man told us to calm down. He told my sister, they would help her. But she was out of her mind. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She raised a hand to protect herself, and somehow, the fire on her skin, the never-ending flame, changed into something like a second hand with long fingers, reaching out for the other people.

I yelled at her to stop, that they would help her. I knew Shield from the tv. From stories. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew they would help her. Somehow.

Only, they didn’t.

The man who told us to calm down, was consumed by the flames. And his partner … he raised his gun and shot my sister.”

Daisy draws in a sharp breath.

“She died there on the street, and her fire died with her. The two remaining Shield agents disappeared. And I sat there beside her, until help arrived. They took me into hospital and treated my burned face. They did all they could. But the pain never goes away completely. It’s a constant reminder of that day.

My sister was innocent. She wanted to go to university. Wanted to become a great doctor or psychologist. Instead, she turned into an Inhuman and died on the street. The Inhuman virus destroys lives. It kills people. It’s bad. It’s as bad as any virus. And Shield … who cares about hypocrites. I decided I need revenge. But not only that. I wanted to stop the Inhuman plague. Who already turned into one, is lost. They need salvation. And they still can die for the greater good. For something, that stops this madness. I have nothing left to live for but this, you know? There's no family I could care about. Thanks to Shield.”

The pained expression disappears from Icarus’s eyes, leaving only cold determination.

I know, that Fitz's memories are the key to my solution. I just know it. And I’m going to get them. One way or another.”

Daisy shakes her head. What she heard, is hurting her deep inside. Everything … from the fact that Fitz is the one who told Icarus about his work in the Framework, to Koenig’s kidnapping to the death of an innocent girl, is making her feel incredibly sad and exhausted. But she has to stay calm and strong now.

“Fitz is stronger than you think,” she says firmly. “He’s not going to work for you. He may be unstable, but he is a good man. He’s going to fight The Doctor. Always. He's stronger than that. You can't just made him into your puppet.”

Icarus shrugs. “Believe what you will. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re going to be gone soon. And besides … everyone would do everything with the right kind of motivation. Pain is a strong, effective motivator, Daisy Johnson. I know that from experience. Now …”

He touches the button again.

“You know, this changes nothing,” Daisy says quietly, feeling her eyes tearing up. “If you kill dozens of innocent Inhumans, just because of your loss and bad experiences, it’s going to change nothing. You won’t feel better after it.”

Icarus turns around one last time to face her. “I beg to differ this time. I think I will feel a lot better, Daisy Johnson. Like someone once said, some people only want to see the world burn. I guess, I’m one of them. I want to see your world burning like mine was - leaving behind only ashes.”

He smiles at her, his scarred skin moving like snakes around his mouth. “Goodbye, Daisy Johnson.”

He presses the button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit, I was kind of stuck.  
> That's why I haven't updated this for so long.  
> I didn't know how to go on, until I had this idea.  
> I feel sorry for it, but I promise everything's going to turn out okay - somehow.


	10. Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew ... I worked on this chapter for weeks! I rewrote it more than one time because I wasn't satisfied :D  
> So many plot problems to solve.  
> Hope you like it. We're close to the end of this story :3 
> 
> Tw: This chapter contains some violence!

The water is freezing cold. It floods the cellar much faster than Daisy had anticipated. Soon it covers her feet and she shivers helplessly. She looks down at the water, a sparkling black in the darkness, and the thoughts are racing in her head.

How much time has passed since Icarus has left? Where are May, Mack, Hunter and the rest? Are they okay? And what about the people they left at the safe house? Bobbi. Eva. Jemma.

Fitz …

God. _Fitz_.

Daisy remembers Icarus’ words and her stomach clenches. She feels nauseous.

What is Fitz going to do, when he realizes _he_ has given Icarus the information? When he learns that Teresa is just an LMD and that he has never taken any medication for his hallucinations? Is he going to hate himself even more than he already does because of the Framework and what happened while he was sleeping in space?

She feels so sick. This lunatic bastard can’t have another chance to mess with Fitz’s mind. She won’t let that happen.

The water has risen above her ankles now. Daisy closes her eyes with a shaky breath. The merciless cold hurts. A lot. But it also helps to clear her mind. She looks up at the cuffs around her wrists. _Power Supressing_. She remembers the pain that ripped through her body when she tried to use her powers. She knows what she’s about to do will hurt like hell.

But she’s Daisy Johnson. Quake. Once she was called Destroyer of Worlds. She’s not going to let a lunatic kill her in a dark cellar. Icarus underestimated her, underestimated her team. And damn, is he going to pay for it.

 _Power suppressing cuffs? Well. Let’s test how much they can suppress_ , Daisy thinks grimly.

She thinks back to the meditation lessons with May. She takes all the emotions trying to overwhelm her and locks them away into a cage in her mind. She closes her eyes and draws in some deep breaths.

Focus. Balance.

She directs her attention inwards. Feels every muscle in her body. The rising water, the cold and the darkness disappear. The world fades out. Now that Daisy has control over mind and body, she goes back to the emotions. She waits for the right time to open the door of the cage. She’s going to let everything out at once. The rage at Icarus and his twisted ideas, the sadness about the things that happened to her team – to Fitz -, the fear about her own situation.

She breathes in one last time.

A second passes.

Daisy opens her eyes abruptly, and she screams as she lets all the power out at once. She screams as the pain rips through her body. She screams in triumph as the cuffs burst. They drop into the water and she drops into it too. She gasps when her body hits the rising water. The cold takes her breath away.

There’s a brief wave of panic rushing through her when she realizes that she can’t get away. Her feet are still cuffed to the wall. She tries to ignore the pain that’s still shaking her and gropes around in her pocket, for the little needle she’s keeping there. She makes a relieved noise when she finds it. It has been a good idea after all.

Her fingers are trembling and for a moment she fears she’s going to lose the needle in the water, but she finally manages to open the cuffs and makes a triumphant noise when she can finally move away from the wall.

“Power Suppressing Cuffs my ass,” Daisy murmurs, getting up and wading to the door, rubbing her sore wrists. They hurt a lot. Feels like her flesh is burning. But she will have to focus on that later.

The quakes the door open and walks out the room.

If Fitz had built the cuffs himself, she thinks, she wouldn’t have been able to escape that easily.  

*

  
Daisy finds the others in a room with six unconscious men.

She’s relieved, even when she sees Piper wrapping a cloth around Hunter’s arm as a makeshift bandage.

“Daisy,” Mack says, looking her up and down. He takes in Daisy’s wet clothes and frowns. “What happened? Are you okay Tremors?”

“I met Icarus,” Daisy says grimly. She’s still shivering. Her clothes are sticking to her tightly like a wet freezing cold second skin. “Turns out it’s not an organisation but a single lunatic bastard who wants revenge. The old story you know.”

Hunter snorts. “Wish I could say I’m surprised. But I’m really not.” He shifts and winces looking at his arm grimly.

“What happened to you?” Daisy asks worried.

“Oh, it’s just a scratch. We ran into a trap. But well, May saved my useless ass effortlessly – yet _again_ \- and here we are.”

“You’re shivering,” May says, touching Daisy’s hand. “We should get you out of your wet clothes.” When Daisy winces and makes a pained noise, May frowns and takes a closer look at her. She draws in a sharp breath when she notices the burn marks around Daisy’s wrists. “This has to be treated,” she says tightly. “Piper …”

Daisy shakes her head and looks at May urgingly. “No. Listen, we have to hurry. He knows where Fitz is. He’s going to try to get to him _now_.”

May frowns. “How …”

Daisy sighs. Piper is already fussing over her, disinfecting the wounds and she grits her teeth at the burning pain. “We had a little talk. Before he tried to get rid of me. He told me that …” She exhales shakily. “May, we were fooled. All the time. Teresa … she’s not the real one, she’s an LMD. Fitz didn’t take any real medication for his hallucinations. It was placebos. He talked to Icarus in Scotland when he switched personalities. He told him about everything. That’s why Icarus knew so much. But Fitz doesn’t remember.”

They all look up at her shocked.

Hunter makes a growling noise and grips his rifle tighter not minding his injury. “That guy is a dead man walking.”

May closes her eyes. She takes a few deep breaths. Then, she looks at Hunter and Daisy. “Let’s go. The sooner we arrive at the safe house the better.”

The others nod. But right when they are about to get up, someone tumbles into the room breathing heavily. It’s a man. A man Daisy only knows from the Framework. Alistair Fitz.

She instinctively raises her hand while the others around her do the same with their weapons.

Fitz’s father quickly raises both hands. “I’m not armed.” He looks at them with a considering expression in his cold eyes. “Do you know if my son is alive?” He asks and it sounds almost hopeful.

“ _You_ helped Icarus to manipulate him,” Daisy says, her voice shaking with disgust. “And now you’re acting like you care about his wellbeing?”

“I did what I have to do,” Alistair says and straightens up.  

Daisy snorts. “Sure. You couldn’t just have, I don’t know, decided to turn on Icarus and be on your son’s  side. I bet you follow Icarus because you share his interests and his twisted opinions about Inhumans. Well let me tell you something: Fitz doesn’t need you. He has us. You won’t get to him.”

Alistair narrows his eyes. “He’s my son, girl. I have every right to see him.”

“You helped kidnapping him, when he was vulnerable and needed rest. And thanks to the Framework we have quite a good impression of what you did to him in the past. You won’t have another chance to harm him, you abusive manipulative bastard!”

Anger flashes in Alistair’s eyes. He takes a step towards Daisy and raises his chin. “Don’t you talk to me like this, you …”

“She’s right,” May says, stepping in front of Daisy. “Fitz  is better off without you. And if you try to get to him in any way, I won’t hold back again, like I did in Scotland. Leave him alone.”

Alistair opens his mouth again his eyes flashing in rage. But before he can say anything else, Hunter says “Enough talking” behind them. He pulls the trigger of an Icer and Fitz’s father slumps on the floor with a dull thud.

May raises her eyebrows. Hunter shrugs. “What? You said we have to hurry …”

Mack looks down at Alistair and shakes his head. “He’s a scientist too, right? We should make sure he has no chance to use the tech still in this base.”

Hunter nods. “I suggest burning the whole place down anyway.” He looks at May and Daisy. “You two hurry and go to the safe house. Me and the others stay here, take care _this_ certain son of a bitch doesn’t escape and destroy Icarus’ tech. What about that. With that arm I won’t be any help in a fight anyway.”

“Good idea, Hunter. Daisy come with me. Let’s not waste any more time …” May rushes off and Daisy follows her, her heart heavy with worry.

 

*

 

The weather is restless. A storm is brewing. Dark heavy clouds rush over the sky. Thunder rolls in the distance.

The power’s out.

Lightnings floods the room with white flashing light from time to time.

Eva clings to Fitz like to a life raft and makes scared noises. Fitz runs a hand over her back and whispers soothing words. He doesn’t like storms neither. As a child, he used to hide under his blankets. When his father was still there, he used to pull him out, shaking him and telling him to be a man. But his mother came to him, slipping under the blankets with him. She held him and told him stories until he calmed down. 

Fitz remembers a lot of these stories. He tells one of them to Eva, whispering the words into her ears. She stops shaking and listens. But when the thunder rolls loudly, she still whimpers.

Fitz looks out of the window and frowns. He feels like something’s wrong. But he can’t quite say what it is. It’s just a vague feeling. Like a dark premonition.

Bobbi eventually comes into the room, carrying a candle. She puts it on the nightstand and the flame throws dancing shadows on the walls. She gives Eva a sympathetic look and smiles. “We had a lot of such storms out here. They are fierce but short.”

“Did you hear anything of the others?” Fitz asks.

Bobbi shakes her head. “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine …”

Fitz nods. He wants to feel as certain as her. But he can’t shake off the bad feeling. He flinches when there’s another thunder roll and Eva whimpers.

The silence after the thunder is deafening. It’s interrupted after mere seconds. By a loud noise that makes both Bobbi and Fitz. They look at each other with wide eyes. “Was that a gunshot?” Fitz asks alarmed.  

Bobbi throws a look out of the window and frowns. “But why …” She doesn’t end the question.

Teresa appears behind her and with one swift motion, she knocks Bobbi down with one of her own batons.

Bobbi slumps like a puppet with cut strings. She lands on the floor with a dull thud. Fitz stares at her. His mind is blank. It can’t comprehend what just happened. Or, maybe it doesn’t want to.

He looks up at Teresa, who stares down at Bobbi indifferently.

“Why?” Fitz breathes.

Teresa doesn’t answer. She just looks at him.

“Because she’s an LMD.”

Fitz flinches at the strange voice coming from the door.

A man enters the room. A man with a mask covering his mouth and nose.

Fitz blinks. It’s the man of his dreams …

“I’m Icarus,” the stranger says, approaching with slow steps. He tilts his head and raises a hand to pull the mask down. Fitz gasps. A lightning reveals the man’s burned skin. A labyrinth of white scars. “You don’t have to get up. It’s better if you stay where you are.” Three men in black clothes come in after the stranger. They’re all wearing weapons.

“Where’s Jemma?” Fitz asks tightly, pressing Eva close to him. She’s looking at the people in the room with wide eyes.

Icarus hums. „Don’t worry. She’s downstairs. My LMD had to daze her. But she will be alright.”

Before Fitz can say anything, Eva pulls away from him and stands in front of the bed. She glares at the man with the mask. Her eyes are shooting daggers. But she also looks terrified. Her whole body is trembling. Her little hands are clenched into trembling fists.  

She knows the guy, Fitz realizes. And whatever she knows about him, it’s nothing good.

“Eva,” Icarus says softly. “I see you didn’t forget me. I didn’t forget either.” He pulls out a device and presses a button.

Suddenly, Eva screams and grabs her neck, falling to the floor. She rolls on her side and shakes, making whimpering noises. They are cut off when she loses consciousness.

“Eva!” Fitz calls out. He gets up from the bed ignoring the weapons pointed at him and the pain in his shoulder. He drops on his knees beside the girl and cradles her into his arms glaring up at Icarus who watches them indifferently. “What did you do to her?” Fitz growls.

The confusion makes his stomach clench. Too much happens in too less time. But there’s also so much anger in him … It’s a brewing storm inside his mind.  

“We implanted a chip into her neck. To prevent her from using her powers. When I activate it, it gives her just enough of a shock to make her seem harmless.”

Fitz shudders in disgust. “You … Who would do something like that to a child!”

“She’s not a child anymore. She’s an abomination. The Doctor would agree with me.”

Fitz inhales shakily. The Doctor … that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? It’s all about the things he wants to bury inside his mind where not even he can find them. “I’m not The Doctor,” he says.

Icarus chuckles. “Well but you have his memories inside you. His abilities. And it would be a shame to throw that all away, wouldn’t it? There’s so much we could do together … We could make this world a better, a safer place.”

“There will never be a “we”. We have nothing in common. I’m going to protect the people I love and care about. I’d rather die than being one of your puppets,” Fitz spits out, clenching his hand into a fist.

Icarus smiles. “You’ll change your mind.”

Before he can answer, someone behind Fitz stabs a needle into his neck and he gasps, trying to turn around. The room starts swaying almost immediately. His legs give way underneath him and he falls. Before everything goes black, he thinks he hears faint laughter that sounds an awfully lot like The Doctor.

Then there’s nothing.

*

When Daisy and May arrive at Hunter and Bobbi’s safe house, they are greeted by a deafening silence. The silence after a storm.

There’s not a single sign of the mercenaries Hunter placed in front of the house.

May and Daisy share a worried glance and hurry inside the hut. They find Jemma in the living room. She’s sitting leaned against a wall, her head on her shoulder. Daisy runs towards her, taking hold of her wrist. “I have a pulse,” she says relieved. “She’s just unconscious.”

She touches Jemma’s forehead and smiles when the other woman moves slightly. “I think she’s going to wake up soon.”

May nods. She goes upstairs, weapon raised.

She throws a look into Fitz’s room. A candle stands on the nightstand. The flame has long died. The bedsheets are crumpled. The pillow lays on the floor. Right beside Bobby’s lifeless body.

May grits her teeth. She breathes against the rage that’s threatening to overwhelm her. Control. Focus. She needs to think clear now. She kneels beside Bobby and takes her pulse. Also unconscious. Otherwise, she seems to be fine.

Daisy comes into the room behind her. “Jemma woke up. I gave her a glass of water. Are they … Oh God,” she breathes, as she sees Bobby on the floor. “Is she …”

“Just unconscious. Like Jemma,” May murmurs. She looks up at the bed and sighs. “Fitz and Eva are gone,” she states.

Daisy swallows.

Fitz. Eva. Icarus took the people he needs to fulfil his desires. Fitz who has what he wants inside his mind. Eva as leverage. May clenches her free hand into a fist. Is this ever going to end?

Daisy leans back against the wall and sighs wiping her face with a shaking hand. “What are we doing now? We have no idea where they went!”

May sighs. Her phone buzzes and she takes it out. Hunter’s face appears on the screen. “What’s going on? Is Bobbi alright? Did you get there fast enough?”

May shakes her head. “Icarus has been faster. He took Fitz and Eva. Bobbi is alright. Just unconscious. As is Jemma.”

Hunter scowls. “This son of a bitch. I will rip his throat out and …”

“Maybe I can help,” says another voice. Alistair Fitz’s face appears on the screen. His hands are cuffed and his suit looks crumpled, but he still manages to regain his arrogant posture.

Daisy snorts. “Absolutely not.”

“I know his secret locations. I can give you the coordinates.”

“Really?”  
May and Daisy flinch and turn around. Jemma is leaning against the doorframe, her face pale. Her face reflects the absolute mistrust Daisy is feeling in regard to this man. “Why would you help us?”

“I made a mistake,” Alistair says. He doesn’t add to it, but a faint shadow flits over his eyes. “I’m going to help you to find Icarus. In exchange I want to talk to my son. And I want to walk away as a free man …”

Daisy opens her mouth to protest but May lays a hand on her arm and looks at her pointedly. “Right now, he may be our only chance to find Fitz and Eva,” she says quietly.

Daisy swallows. But she sighs and nods.

May looks at Alistair and narrows her eyes. “Give us the coordinates. If we find them, we’ll think about your conditions.”

Jemma shakes her head. “You know, this doesn’t change anything. And if you think Fitz will forgive you, you’re wrong.”

Alistair doesn’t react to her words. He tells Hunter some coordinates.

May writes them on a note.

On the screen, Hunter grimly shoulders his rifle. “So we have six possible locations. I would suggest we built two teams like we are now and search them through one after the other. You take the first three on the list, we the others.”

May nods. “Yes. Be quick. We don’t know what Icarus is planning.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be very quick,” Hunter promises, a dark glimmer in his eyes May knows all too well. “And be careful,” she sighs just as the screen goes black.

She turns to Jemma and Daisy. “Let’s try to wake up Bobbi and prepare to leave.”

Daisy nods. When May crouches down beside Bobby, she looks at Jemma and tries to make her voice sound as comforting as possible. “We’re going to find him – them -, Jemma.”

Jemma nods. She looks at Daisy grimly. “I know.”

  
*

Fitz paces the room restlessly, like a tiger in a cage.

He can’t take many steps until he faces one of the four walls. The room he woke up in is small. There’s no window, nor a cot. Just the walls. Grey wet stone, smelling faintly of moss.

This situation is familiar. He doesn’t want to remember the days, weeks, months he spent in prison, trying to find a solution to the team’s disappearance while also trying to not get mad, but the images and the emotions connected to them rise up to the surface of his mind anyway, making him even more restless.

His thoughts are racing. Where’s Eva? Are Jemma and Bobbi alright? Jemma … They’re separated again. He can’t help but think of his own words from the past. _We’re cursed_ …

He sighs and leans his forehead against the cool wall. What is he supposed to do now? Icarus doesn’t want him or his abilities. He wants The Doctor. This is insane … As if Fitz would be able to just switch from one person to another. True is, that he remembers the Framework, remembers his wrong life. But it’s only pieces, like glass shards.

And he won’t give Icarus any of it. Never.

The question is, what Icarus is willing to do, to make Fitz comply. Unlike Magnus, he seems to be someone who isn’t opposed to torture. Fitz smiles bitterly. He isn’t Ward. And he isn’t May. He wasn’t trained to withstand torture. Maybe, he thinks dully, he should bite off his tongue or something like that …

He scratches his arms and turns around again, freezing, when he sees the person leaning against the opposite wall. No. He blinks and reminds himself, that it’s not a person. It’s just his mind playing tricks at him, like it does since he drowned and came back to life. It’s just a hallucination.

The Doctor tilts his head and smirks. _I am, you know? Trained to withstand torture._

Fitz snorts. “Of course,” he murmurs. “Of course, you are. You are everything I’m not, right?”

 _Oh, I wouldn’t say so_ , The Doctor says. _I’m just like a better version of you. Less weak and less bound to ridiculous emotions._

Fitz closes his eyes. He leans against the wall and sighs. He’s so exhausted. The thing he wants to do the most right now, is sleeping. He can’t do this anymore. It just goes on and on. He thought he managed to escape the cycle, but now he’s right back inside it …

 _You could just give in, you know. Would make things easier_ , The Doctor tells him.

“Shut up,” Fitz murmurs. He presses a hand over his eyes and grits his teeth. “Just shut up …”

God, he misses Jemma. Just a day or two ago, he had that dream ... They were sitting on a meadow, surrounded by wildflowers. Jemma was smiling at him. That was it. And he was happy. So happy ...

_This is the kind of emotions I was talking about. They are making you weak … It’s a weakness._

A sudden wave of rage rushes through Fitz. _A weakness_ … “I said, shut up!” He cries out, turning around abruptly to face The Doctor. But there’s only the grey wall.

The next moment the door opens and Fitz flinches. Icarus steps in. He doesn’t wear his mask. Half of his face is covered in burn marks. When he smiles at Fitz, the scars are moving like snakes. “Doctor Fitz. I’m happy we meet again. I’m sorry for the … inconveniences. But it was unavoidable.”  
His voice sounds awfully polite. And he actually stretches out his hand for Fitz to shake.

Fitz just glares at him.

Icarus shrugs and pulls his hand back. The smile doesn’t disappear from his face. “You were way more cooperative when we’ve met in Scotland. I fear you don’t remember. You weren’t exactly, uh, yourself back then. But you told me a lot. About the things you want to hide inside your mind so badly.”

Fitz’s eyes widen. His stomach drops as he realizes what Icarus is indicating. “No. that’s not possible … I would remember it … I would … I’ve taken medication. For the hallucinations. For the, the …” He groans in frustration and presses a hand against his forehead. Of course. Now his aphasia makes a reappearance. It only happens these times when he’s really stressed.

He can’t believe … No. It can’t be. He can’t be the one who gave Icarus the information. No.

Icarus tilts his head. He looks at Fitz like he’s an insect under a microscope. “Placebos. They were placebos. My LMD gave them to you. I was curious, you know. Your father told me a lot, but Agent Koenig told me even more. When you were in Scotland I let you be watched by my men constantly. I wanted to know if The Doctor would show. And he did. Only once. But it was long enough …”

Fitz remembers the feeling of being followed and shudders. Instinctively, he knows what Icarus is saying is true. He feels sick to the stomach. He takes a step backward and takes a trembling breath. “I don’t know what you want or what you expect to happen,” he says. “I can assure you, I don’t know how to “cure” Inhumans. I’m an engineer. I don't know anything about Inhuman biology. You definitely have the wrong person."

“What I want is simple,” Icarus says, taking a step forward. Now they are so close, that Fitz can see the muster of the scars on Icarus’ face. The white lines form a complicated labyrinth. He resists the urge to duck and raises his chin to stare directly into Icarus’ eyes. They are cold. Like two frozen lakes.

“I want what’s in here,” Icarus says, actually tapping the tip of his finger against Fitz’s head. “I want everything The Doctor knows about Inhumans. And you’re going to give it to me. One way or another.”

Fitz shakes his head. “No, I won’t. I can’t. The Doctor isn’t real. He existed in the Framework and he died with it. I told you. I’m not him.”

Icarus chuckles. “No you aren’t him. But you have his memories. You have memories of two different lives in your head. I know that The Doctor was experimenting on Inhumans. I know he collected folders full of information about how they tick. I know he was working on ways to eliminate their powers. And it’s all hidden inside your mind. If you don’t remember now, that’s not a problem. I can help you. With pleasure.”

Fitz makes a bitter noise. “And how would this _help_ look like? Let me guess. You’re going to torture me.”

Icarus takes a few steps backward to Fitz’s relief. He smiles and folds his hands behind his back. “Well. Pain is certainly a powerful motivator. Everyone has a breaking point. Over the years I’ve gained a lot of experience. There doesn’t have to be a mess. There doesn’t have to be a lot of blood and screams. The most powerful torture doesn’t leave a visible mark. First, after I learned about your brain injury, I thought about water. But then I thought, something that works from the inside would be more efficient.”

He reaches inside the pocket of his coat and shows Fitz a syringe filled with a transparent liquid. Fitz’s stomach drops. He instinctively backs away and feels his back connecting with the cold stone behind him.

“I think this is all I need to make you remember,” Icarus says, tilting his head to the side. “I really would prefer if you, uh, didn’t put up a fight … It really is no use.”

Fitz scoffs. His throat feels tight and he’s nauseous. But he’s definitely not going to let this lunatic inject him with some dubious drug without resistance. He raises his fists and glares at Icarus and the other man sighs. It sounds disappointed.

“Of course … I could also try it out on her first,” he says, nodding towards the door.

Fitz gasps and freezes.  

Two men in black clothes shove Eva inside the cell. She’s shivering, her eyes wide open and filled with fear. There’s a collar around her neck, that’s blinking rhythmically. When she sees Fitz, she whimpers and fights the men, but their grip around her arms are too strong.

All the cold vanishes from Fitz’s body, replaced by white hot rage. He grits his teeth and clenches his hands to fists. “If you touch her,” he growls. “I swear I’ll kill you …”

Icarus looks at him attentively and smiles. “Ah. That’s more like it. You know, I think there’s actually more of The Doctor in you than you want to admit to yourself …”

That’s enough. Fitz sees red. He cries out and throws himself on Icarus. The next moment, the other man is laying on the floor and Fitz hovers over him, a lout rushing in his ears fading out the noises around him. He growls and lunges out. His fist connects with Icarus’ face hard.

Icarus gasps. Then he starts laughing. His eyes sparkle in madness and the scars around his mouth are moving around like busy snakes. Blood from his nose trickles over his white skin.

Fitz hits him again. And again. He doesn't even notice the gunshot wound at his shoulder reopening. The adrenaline fades out pain and exhaustion and leaves nothing back but rage.

Before he can land another blow he's pulled back by firm hands. He struggles with full force, kicking and lashing out blindly while He almost succeeds in escaping the grip on his arms, landing a punch on someone’s nose and hearing a pained gasp. The noise makes him feel bitter triumphant, but only for a second. A fist connects with his stomach and he doubles over, groaning in pain. The next moment he’s thrown on the floor and bumps his head on the stone wall so hard he sees black for a moment. There’s a ringing in his ears and he brings a shaking hand to the back of his head. He feels something wet and sticky. Blood …

From somewhere, he can hear Eva crying. Eva. He needs to protect her … For a moment, he’s back in the snowy wilderness, Eva holding on to his hand while they’re searching for shelter.

_I need to protect her …_

He tries to get up from the floor, but someone’s leg pins him down. The next moment there’s the pinch of a needle in his neck again and the drug works fast. He feels his muscles getting weak and groans when a sharp pain explodes in his head. He turns his head and sees Eva through a curtain of blurry lights. He wants to tell her that everything’s going to be alright, but then Icarus crouches in front of him, looking down on him with curiosity written all over his burned face.

Fitz glares up at him. “I will … never … work for you,” he grits out while the colours around him are fading and he starts to tremble helplessly. There’s a fire burning inside him, slowly consuming every cell of his body. “Never …”

Icarus tilts his head and smiles. “We’ll see.”


	11. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter!  
> Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, giving kudos.  
> It was fun to write this story, especially, because it turned out completely different than I thought it would, and because I got to experiment with a few different writing techniques here :)  
> Maybe there will be a spinoff sometime, we'll see.

_He’s on fire._

_Every cell of his body and his mind is burning. Hot white flames are consuming him. He’s laying on the floor, his arms wrapped around himself, eyes squeezed shut. He’s panting for air desperately, but his lungs are burning too._

_The fire of fear is raging inside of him, prepared to leave nothing back but ashes and dust._

_He knows fear. It has always been there. But not like this. It has been lurking in the background, always prepared to strike like a snake snapping at its prey. It has been silent most of the times. A quiet, but ever-present companion. Now it’s different. Now, the fear is hungry. It’s loud and merciless. It chokes him._

_He whimpers and squirms on the ground. He can hear his own breath in this black void, in which he’s fighting a forlorn battle against his own senses._

_The fire of fear burns and burns. The flames lick their way inside the hidden corners of his mind and the scenery around him changes._

_He’s eight and he’s laying in his bed, his legs trembling and his stomach clenching painfully, as he hears his parents screaming at each other downstairs. He knows his mother is crying. Her voice sounds choked. He also knows that his father is drunk again. The stench of alcohol is well-known by now. He pushes his face into the pillow and whimpers. He wants it to stop … Maybe, he thinks, maybe it’s my fault. I’m not good enough … If I only could make him proud, would he stop screaming? Maybe …_  
_Suddenly, a small beam of light falls into his room. His mother is standing in the door, looking at him while trying to muffle her tears with a hand in front of her mouth. “Oh Leo,” she whispers, and he wants to go to her, but he’s frozen in place._  
I’m sorry _, he wants to tell her. I’m sorry. I wish I could make it right. I wish I could make us happy again –_

 _The image changes and everything’s dark again because he’s laying on the ground of the medical pod on the bottom of the ocean and the light is far away, unreachable somewhere above him. He’s alone and he knows this can’t be right. Someone is supposed to be with him … Where is she. Where is the light in his darkness …_  
_The next moment he flinches because he isn’t alone anymore. But the person with him is the last one he wants to see. Grant Ward looks down at him, his head tilted to the side. Ward crouches down beside him, and he wants to squirm away, but he can’t move._  
_“I saved your life,” Ward tells him. He sounds so honest. And there’s a glimmer of hope in his brown eyes. He seems to believe in his own words. “I saved your life, Fitz … I gave you a chance. I knew you two could find a way out. I knew it. And you did.”_  
_Despite the fear raging through him, he feels confusion and anger._  
_You didn’t save us … We saved ourselves. You could have hidden us from Garett, Ward. Instead you had to drop us into the ocean and hoped we would find our way out of it unharmed? Well, look at me. Because of you I’m damaged, Ward. You did this to me, you …_

_Ward’s sad face disappears in the void. Yet again the surroundings change._

_Ophelia cups his face and whispers his name. Leopold … She leans forward for a kiss and he wants nothing more but to get away._

_No._  
Not this.  
Please not this.

_Ophelia dissolves and he’s in a cell. Monkey faces stare at him from the walls. He drew them himself …  
He wants it to stop. _

_Please. I want it to stop. Please …_

_“I can make it stop.” The voice is just a whisper somewhere in a place in his head that’s not burning. He knows the voice. He locked its owner away. Locked him into a cage, threw the key away._

_No … Not you. I won’t ever let you take control._

_“If you don’t, they’re going to continue. The fire is going to take you apart bit by bit. Until nothing is left of you. How do you want to protect anyone like this? You’re going to break. And I’m going to be in control. Again.”_

_No. I am in control …_

_“But for how much longer?”_

_The voice actually sounds concerned. Not as threatening as before. Why …  
Something … words come to his mind. Who said them? It was long ago, after he escaped another cell. Hunter, he remembers faintly. Light and shadow. Black and white. Good and bad. It’s in everyone. _

_You and I, he thinks weakly, we have a connection._

_“Yes we have.”_

_We need to find a balance._

_“A balance.”_

_A ba -_

_*_

“This is the last location on our list. And since Hunter’s team didn’t find anything, this could be the right place,” May says, handing Daisy her field glasses.

Daisy takes a look through them and nods grimly. “I hope so. It took us way too long for my liking.”

May doesn’t say anything to this. But she feels the same. It took them three days to go through all the locations on the list and every time they had to realize that no one was there, they got more frustrated and feared, that the coordinates Fitz’s father gave them might be wrong or not of any use and Icarus could have other hiding places as well.

Now they’re in the admittedly beautiful wilderness of Sweden and look at a lonely stone house in front of them. It’s raining. They sky is a heavy grey blanket above them, and May thinks she heard thunder rolling in the distance a few seconds ago. The weather fits her mood very accurately.

“How do we do this?” Daisy asks.

May looks back to the Zephyr, where Jemma and Bobbi are preparing their gear. “Exactly like we did it the last days. Surprise attack. Straight in, every threat in our way gets iced.”

Daisy nods. She narrows her eyes. “I hope Icarus is there. I’m going to quake his ass against a wall,” she murmurs grimly.

“Be careful,” May reminds her. “Remember, he could use Fitz or Eva against us.”

“I know,” Daisy murmurs. Anger makes her throat clench. We will get them out of this, she remembers herself. It’s going to be over soon and then I’m not going to let Fitz out of sight again.

“Let’s go,” May tells them and they move.

*

May kicks the door to the house open and everyone walks in, weapons at the ready.

First, it’s very silent and they hear nothing but their own breaths. But then, there’s a whirring sound from all sides. “What the,” Daisy mutters and then freezes. From every corner of the room, a person nears them. But when May fires and they just walk on, it’s very clear what they’re dealing with.

“LMDs,” Daisy groans. “Not again … Everyone be careful!” She calls. “They are stronger than humans and more resistant!” She throws her Icer away and prepares to fight, raising her fists and inhaling deeply.

The next moment, hell breaks loose.

Daisy, Bobbi and May start to fist-fight against the LMDs, while Jemma tries to shoot one, without much success.

“Go!” Daisy tells her while ducking. “We’re going to handle this. Go and find Fitz and Eva.”

Jemma obeys. She grips her weapon tight and walks upstairs, looking into the rooms, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

When she checks the third room, she sees him and freezes.

He’s standing with his back to her, bend over a desk.

“Fitz,” Jemma whispers.  

He perks up at her voice and slowly turns around.

Jemma exhales shakily, relief and worry rushing through her. “Fitz, I’m so glad you are …” She stops.

Fitz is staring at her and his eyes are cold. His face remains expressionless. “You,” he says and it sounds disgusted.

_No …_

Jemma’s breath falters. “Fitz,” she whispers.

“It’s Doctor Fitz,” he tells her in a stern tone and narrows his eyes.

Jemma wants to cry. “What did they do to you?” She breathes, her voice trembling.

He tilts his head and smiles crookedly. “They helped me to become who I really am.”

“No, Fitz. This is not who you are. They’re just messing with your mind. And I’m so sorry,” she says, a tear rolling over her face. “But we’re going to get through this, I promise …”

“You’re too late.” The cold voice makes Jemma flinch. She turns around and faces the man responsible for this. Icarus. He’s not alone. Another LMD grabs Jemma around the waist and pulls the weapon out of her hand.

Fitz watches it happen indifferently.

Icarus takes a few steps towards Jemma and smiles. “I must admit, I’m amazed you managed to find us. But I guess, someone was talking. Well. It doesn’t matter now. We’re going to free the world of Inhumans once and for all. In return, I promised the Doctor to bring the love of his life back … Ophelia, wasn’t it?”

Fitz – or The Doctor? – nods. Jemma makes a disbelieving noise. “That isn’t even possible!” She calls out. “That thing was destroyed.”

“Anything is possible, Miss Simmons,” Icarus tells her. “With my resources and The Doctor’s mind, there are no limits.”

“You’re crazy,” Jemma tells him under tears. “You’re crazy and you’re going to pay for what you did to Fitz …”

“I invite you to stay and watch what happens. I don’t know about your friends though. I’m sure my special LMDs overcame them by now.” He nods at the LMD. “Bring her away.”

“Wait,” Fitz says behind them. “This woman killed my father. I want to have a moment alone with her if you don’t mind.”

Icarus smirks and nods at the LMD, who lets go of Jemma. She rubs her sore arms and glares at Icarus, who turns around and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Fitz clears his throat. He walks towards Jemma slowly and she shivers. She sees flashbacks. She’s fighting against his LMD, is watching him shooting the woman in the Framework. And she’s seeing him pointing a gun at her head. It all comes up at once and she feels hopeless.

_Please, this can’t be real …_

When he stands right in front of her, he looks down at her with hard eyes. But suddenly, he pulls a small notebook out under his jacket and starts to write something on it. Jemma frowns.  

He shows the notebook to her carefully. Jemma’s eyes widen.

_Don’t say anything. Don’t react. Bugs and cameras everywhere. I had to act. I’m sorry. Love you._

Jemma exhales shakily.

The faintest hint of a smile appears in the corners of Fitz’s mouth and his eyes fill with warmth momentarily, before he forces himself to be cold again. “Well, Miss Simmons. This is how we meet again …”

However, before he can speak further, the door is torn open. Icarus walks in and he looks furious. He grabs Jemma’s arm hard enough to bruise and she hisses. From the corner of her eye she sees Fitz twitching and hopes he can retain his cover – but when Icarus talks, she realizes it doesn’t matter anymore. “This was unwise. My LMDs are trained to discover even the slightest changes in behaviour. They saw the glimmer in your eyes. You still care for her. You were trying to trick me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fitz says. But there’s a hint of panic in his eyes now.

Icarus smirks. “Well. Then I guess, you won’t mind if I do this, _Doctor_.” He pulls out a slim knife and holds it to Jemma’s throat.

“No!” Fitz calls out and takes a step forward.

Icarus chuckles. “You’re still so emotional. I thought I broke you with that drug. But there you are, still caring too much.” There’s something like reluctant recognition in his eyes.

Fitz snorts. His hands clench into fists at his side. “What were you expecting? That I would give up without a fight? I told you I won’t work for you. Thinking you could make me into The Doctor to use me for your goals was just another mistake you made – along with underestimating my team. They will beat your LMDs. They will beat _you_. Because that’s what we do at Shield. We protect people from crazy lunatics like you.”

Icarus growls in anger. But Jemma notices, that there’s a hint of insecurity in his posture now. The next moment he presses the knife harder against her throat and Jemma feels the skin breaking slightly, a drop of blood running over her pale skin. Fitz’s eyes are fixed to it and his breath falters. His eyes narrow.

Icarus smirks at him. “Under all your brave talking, you’re incredibly vulnerable. Especially when it comes to this woman. Maybe I approached this the wrong way. Maybe I have to hurt _her_ to make you comply.”

Fitz makes a growling noise in the back of his throat. “If you lay a finger on her …”

Suddenly the room shakes.

 _Daisy_ , Jemma thinks faintly.

Icarus tumbles and his grip softens in his surprise. Jemma breaks free and lunges for the gun in Icarus’ hand. She hears Fitz screaming something, but she can’t make out the words. She grabs the weapon and her and Icarus wrestle for it for a long moment, while the room is still shaking around them. The gun gets off once, but only hits the ceiling.  

Icarus lands a blow against her temple and Jemma groans as everything goes dark for a moment. A moment too long. Icarus kicks her, and she lands on her back, her body screaming in pain. Icarus points his gun at her, smirking.  
The next moment Fitz is over Icarus and slams a fist into his face with a furious scream. Icarus grunts and grabs Fitz’s arm, trying to shove him away. With his free hand he’s reaching for the weapon, but even in the dark haze in front of her eyes, Jemma manages to kick the gun away with her foot.

Icarus reaches inside his pocket instead, retrieving an object, that is reflecting the dim sunlight and Jemma realizes it’s a syringe. “Fitz!” She warns. She tries to heave her body up to help Fitz, but suddenly the LMD grabs her again and lifts her up effortlessly

The next moment Icarus rams the needle into Fitz’s neck and he almost immediately goes limp. Icarus shoves him away. He sits up, breathing heavily. His nose is bleeding. He reaches for it and looks at the blood on his fingers with an unreadable expression on his face.

Jemma’s desperate eyes are fixed on Fitz, who lays on the floor almost motionless, except for an occasional twitch of his limbs. His eyes are open, but apparently unseeing. “Fitz,” she whispers horrified.

Icarus gets up and looks down on Fitz, snarling. “I don’t get it. The things you have in your mind … They could change the world! Yet you fight so hard to escape them. Pathetic,” he  says and kicks Fitz in the stomach.

Rage explodes in Jemma’s heart and she fights against the LMD furiously. “Leave him alone!”

Icarus throws a cold glance at her. “Knock her out,” he tells the LMD.

The next moment everything is black.

*

 

Daisy takes a deep breath and looks at the LMD she has just destroyed. This was tough. She looks around and sees May still fighting. Bobbi sits on the ground beside her broken opponent, holding her arm with a grimace of pain on her face.

Daisy gets up and goes to help May. Together, they manage to destroy the remaining LMD. They look around breathing heavily. And suddenly, Daisy hears a faint whimper, coming from downstairs. The cellar …

“Eva,” Daisy whispers and swallows. She walks quickly into the direction of the whimper and finds a cell. In it, Eva sits on the ground, looking up at her with wide fearful eyes. “Hey,” Daisy whispers soothingly. “I’m going to get you out of here, don’t worry …” She quakes the lock open, crouches down and opens are arms. “Come on, you’re going to be alright …”

Eva hurries out of the cage, hugging Daisy. She’s crying, pressing her wet face against Daisy’s chest. Daisy notices the collar around the girl’s neck and narrows her eyes. These bastards … Without doubt this is something to suppress Eva’s powers. “Hold still, trust me,” she tells Eva softly and quakes the thing open, to throw it away, feeling nothing but disgust and rage.

May appears behind them. “It looks like there are no other LMDs or armed men here,” she says quietly.

It’s then, that they hear a shot from above. Daisy looks at May urgently. “Take Eva to safety. I’ll go upstairs.”

May nods. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she says, taking Eva in her arms and leaves.  

Daisy quickly makes her way upstairs, hoping that the bastard Icarus is inside the room she approaches.

*

Daisy quakes the door open.

The image in front of her makes her falter in her steps.

Fitz is laying on the floor on his back.    
Icarus stands beside him, his head tilted and his arms behind his back. He looks like he’s watching a squirming insect under a microscope.

A lifeless Jemma is leaning against the opposite wall, while another LMD stands beside her. It moves when it sees Daisy.  

Daisy lets the rage overtake her. She raises her hand and quakes the LMD so violently, it tumbles against a window, which breaks. Shards are flying everywhere and Daisy quakes the LMD out of the broken window.

Icarus looks at Daisy. He doesn’t wear his mask. There’s the hint of surprise on his burned face. “Daisy Johnson,” he states. “I’m curious. How did you …”

Daisy doesn’t let him end the sentence. “I don’t let a pair of cuffs stop me asshole.” She raises her hand again.  

Icarus crashes into the wall and slumps on the floor with a breathless groan.

Daisy rushes to Fitz and crouches down beside him. She touches his shoulder, shaking him slightly. “Fitz?”

He doesn’t seem to notice her. He stares up at the ceiling, his eyes blank. His body is trembling.

Daisy glares at Icarus who touches the back of his head. He looks at his hand. There’s blood on it and he smiles absently.

“What did you do to him?!” Daisy yells.

Icarus looks up at her. “I injected a combination of drugs into his system. It heightens anxiety. I thought it would be able to make him break and reveal the Doctor. But I admit, he’s more stubborn than I thought.”

“You bastard!” Daisy jumps up and raises her hand again. There’s so much anger in her. So much white-hot rage at this man, who let her team mates suffer even more than they already did. Fitz went through enough. He deserves the peace he had hoped to find when he left Shield. It isn’t fair.

Icarus looks at her expectantly. “Are you going to kill me now, Daisy Johnson?”

Something dark in her screams _yes_. But she knows she’s not going to do it. It isn’t right. She shakes her head. “No. But I’m going to make sure you won’t hurt anyone else. Never again. I promise you, you will spend the rest of your life in a small cell, thinking about the pain you caused.”

Icarus nods. Like he has expected those words. “No. No I don’t think so,” he says, shaking his head and smiling weakly.  

Daisy frowns.

The next moment she sees the mobile phone in Icarus’ hand. He types something and smiles up at Daisy. “I gave Teresa’s LMD orders. She didn’t attack you and was hiding until now. She knows what to do when I send her the message. If I burn, Daisy Johnson, you burn with me.” He presses a button.

Almost immediately, there’s a sound like an explosion going off downstairs.

Almost immediately, smoke creeps up into the room.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Daisy screams, as she understands. The LMD set the building on fire.  

Icarus sighs and closes his eyes. He leans his head back against the wall. “It began with fire and it ends with fire. Beautiful isn’t it?”

Daisy coughs and tries to see something through the smoke that quickly gets thicker. She’s in a burning building with two unconscious people. She tries to think fast. Faster than the flames consuming the house around her.

“Daisy!” May. It’s May. She comes into the room, a cloth in front of her mouth. Daisy has never been so relived to see her. “May,” she says helplessly.

May doesn’t waste anymore time. “Take Jemma,” she says hoarsely, while already crouching beside Fitz, shaking him. “We have to jump. The cellar and the whole ground floor are already burning.”

Daisy nods. She holds Jemma upright and drags her to the shattered window. She looks outside. It’s not very high. Still, she’s going to have to soften the fall with her powers. Right when she steps on the window sill, Jemma moves in her arms and whispers, “Daisy?”

Daisy smiles at her as reassuringly as she can. “Hey. The building is burning. We have to jump. Can you hold on to me?”

“Yes, I … Fitz?”

“May’s helping him, don’t worry about him now. Come on …”

Jemma holds on to her waist and after a last deep breath, Daisy jumps. She holds her hands down and gives a few softer quakes, making sure they slow down the fall. She lands on the grass with a thud and she supports Jemma while they take a few steps away from the burning house. Bobbi is waiting for them between the trees, holding her arm which seems to be broken. She looks relieved to see them. They all look up to the window, waiting for May and Fitz.

*

The flames are quick. They already reached the door, licking on the wood hungrily. The smoke is black and thick. May feels her throat getting sorer with every breath.

Fitz is staring up into the void. He’s mumbling incoherently.

“Fitz,” May says firmly and shakes his shoulders again. “Come on, you have to snap out of it.”

Fitz whimpers. He throws his head from side to side. But he finally seems to notice May. He blinks up at her, groaning. “Jemma … we have to … she is …”

“She’s safe, Fitz. Daisy helped her.”

He nods and his eyes roll back. He groans again.

Involuntarily, painfully May feels reminded of the moment she saw him die. She remembers his confused eyes. Remembers how he asked for Polly and Robin. He cares so much for others. Even in his last moments he was thinking about the safety of others.

“You have to get up, Fitz,” she tells him and throws his arm over her shoulder.

But he flinches and whines. “May,” he murmurs. “May, it hurts.”

She bites her lip. Whatever that bastard has given him, it doesn’t seem to wear off just yet. She will have to carry him. She grabs him around the waist and picks him up bridal style. It’s way too easy to do this and she wonders when he had a proper meal for the last time. He’s dead weight in her arms and she tumbles to the window with him. She looks outside and sees Daisy, who nods up at her, raising her hands to soften their fall.

May takes a look back through the smoke at Icarus, who remains sitting against the wall, a lost expression on his face. His eyes reflect the flames around him. May averts her gaze.

She jumps out of the window, her lungs still filled with smoke and her heart with rage.

 

*

 

_He’s floating in a black void._

_It’s dead silent._

_At least, there’s no more pain._

_The fire of fear has worn off._

_Maybe, he thinks, Maybe I’m dead._

_But, would I be able to think and feel then?_

_He’s not sure._

_Tired._

_He’s so tired._

_He just wants to lay here, floating in the darkness._

_But there’s someone calling his name and the voice sounds wonderfully familiar. It fills him with hope._

_Jemma …_

 

*

When Fitz wakes up, there’s something on his face. Something cold and heavy. He panics and reaches for it with a trembling hand, but someone stops him, grabbing his wrist.  

“Hey, calm down, Fitz. It’s just an oxygen mask. You need it. You inhaled a lot of smoke.”

_Daisy …_

Fitz blinks up into the direction of the voice. Slowly, the haze in front of his eyes starts to clear and he can make out Daisy’s face. She smiles at him. “Hey. Good to see you awake. You were out of it quite long.”

_Quite long …_

Fitz inhales shakily and tries to remember.

 _What happened? Where’s Icarus? Where’s …_  
  
Jemma.

“Jemma,” he whispers hoarsely.

“She’s alright. She was checked through by a doctor. And now she is with Eva. On the station for children. They’re going to remove that chip in her neck,” Daisy explains.

Fitz tries to sit up. His whole body hurts and he groans. Daisy hurries to help him sit up against the pillows. Fitz takes the mask off and lays it on the blanket. “Icarus,” he says and grimaces when his throat feels like it’s filled with raspy sand.

A shadow flicks over Daisy’s eyes. “He’s … He burned the building down, Fitz. He’s gone. He’s gone with it. And Hunter destroyed their tech. They won’t be a problem anymore.”

Fitz shakes his head. “There’ll always be someone like him …”

“Damn right. And we will always be there to stop them,” Daisy says grimly.

Fitz looks up at her and smiles weakly. “You’ll be there. Yeah. I know.” He looks down at his hands and sighs. He feels wrecked. He doesn’t even want to start to remember what happened in the last few weeks. It’s a mess. _He_ is a mess.

Daisy clears her throat. “Uh, the doctor said the drug didn’t do damage to your body fortunately. Also, you won’t go through withdrawal. You’re alright beside the wound on your shoulder, that reopened, and a slight smoke poisoning.”

Alright. He’s anything but alright. He’s like shattered glass …

Fitz shivers and hides his face in both hands. He bends forward, his stomach clenching painfully. The next moment, there’s Daisy’s warm hand, stroking his back. “Hey. Fitz, hey, it’s over,” she tells him.

But he shakes his head. “I … I can’t believe I told him all these things. I gave him information about myself, about the team. I betrayed everyone!”

“That isn’t true. It isn’t your fault, Fitz. You were … manipulated. I’m so sorry.”

Fitz sighs. “No. Maybe Icarus was right. Maybe that’s who I am now. I have these memories. And abilities. When I acted like The Doctor again, to trick Icarus so he won’t continue with the drug, I felt like something was pulling at me. Maybe there’s a part of me, which likes to be like _him_. A part which was always there …” He lowers his head and shudders.  

Daisy lays her hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Don’t say that. You’re a good man, Fitz. There may be a part of you that’s dark, but don’t we all have that side inside us? What counts are the choices we make. And you choose not to help Icarus. You fought against anything he tried to make you into his puppet. You stayed strong.”

Fitz shakes his head. “I wish I could see it that way. But right now, I feel so weak as never before in my life. I’m a mess, Daisy.”

Daisy bites her lip. “Look. I know you’ve been through much. Too much. We’re all sore and exhausted, but … Now we can finally take a proper break. We can return to the Lighthouse together. Make it a home …” She sounds so hopeful. Fitz hates himself for his next words. But he made his decision. He knows what he has to do.

He looks at Daisy and shakes his head regretfully. “No. I’m sorry but I can’t. I have to do something, Daisy. I … I can’t do this anymore.”

Daisy frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not going with you. I’m going to stay here. Admit myself to the psych ward. Get proper medication and therapy this time.”

“Fitz … Are you sure?”

Fitz looks to the opposite wall. The Doctor is standing there, staring back at him wordlessly. He’s flickering. But he’s there.

“Yes. I’m sure,” he murmurs.

There has to be a way to put the pieces of his shattered mind back together. At least he  hopes so. And maybe, he can be happy with Jemma afterwards.

*

Before May says goodbye, she tells him about his father.

“I don’t want to see him,” Fitz says immediately. He looks at his hands on the blanket and swallows, when unwelcome memories of the Framework come up. “I never want to talk to him again,” he adds, shivering slightly.

May nods. “I thought so. Don’t worry. He’s not going to find out where you are. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

May shifts her weight and crosses her arms. “You should know, that I’m proud of you,” she tells him calmly. “Life hasn’t been fair to you. But you’re still standing and most of all, you’re still yourself. Sure, you changed. A lot. We all did. But you’re kind and loyal and you still try to save people no matter what it takes. It’s not easy to stay like this, when the world doesn’t stop throwing punches on you. Also, I’m proud that you decided to get help again. I know that’s not an easy step.” She comes closer and lays a hand on his shoulder. “Just don’t forget you’re not alone. You never were.”

He looks up at her and smiles. “I know. Thank you, May. Thanks for being there and for … caring.”

She nods and looks at him for another moment. Her eyes reflect a lot of emotions. Then, she turns around and leaves the room.

*

“I’m fine,” Jemma says, when Fitz carefully touches the bandage around her head. “A little bruised. But I’ll survive.”

She’s sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand. “You’re absolutely sure you’re going to do this?” She asks him softly.

Fitz nods. “Yes. I need to. I’m still seeing and hearing him, Jemma. And I feel so exhausted. I have to start to accept that I went through way too much trauma, without ever starting to process it. Before I can get on with this life – _our_ life – I have to heal first.”

Jemma inhales shakily. There are tears in her eyes, but she smiles at him. “Okay. If you need to do this, I’m with you. I think you’re right. We should both take time to heal. I’m going to attend therapy sessions too. We went through so much … It’s time to stop running away from it.”

They lean against each other, just enjoying the shared warmth and silence for a while.

Eventually, Jemma says, “We’re going to take Eva with us to the Lighthouse. She has no living relatives and I thought … Well. I thought we could try to be her family. She really loves you, you know?”

“Of course,” Fitz says, squeezing her hand. “I love her too. Maybe we can help her to find the good in life again, after everything they did to her …”

“Yes. And …” Jemma rummages in her bag for a while, until she pulls out a postcard. She shows it to Fitz. He smiles when he sees it. It’s the picture of a little grey cottage in the middle of beautiful wilderness. Green hills and a blue sky without clouds.

“I still want this,” Jemma tells him softly.

“Yeah. Me too,” Fitz says and kisses her forehead. “And someday, we’re going to be there …”

*

Mack, Elene, Bobbi and Hunter say goodbye to him too after Jemma.

He even receives a phone call from Theresa, who was freed by Hunter’s team and brought to a facility where she can recover. She says sorry, but he tells her not to apologize. She’s just another victim in this.

When he’s finally alone in his new room on the psych ward, it’s slowly getting dark outside. He feels exhausted and knows he will fall asleep any moment, but he still decides to make a last phone call today. He calls his mother.  

It’s wonderful to hear her voice. She tells him that things are looking good. She’s about to beat the cancer. When she asks Fitz about what happened to him, he doesn’t tell her everything. He thinks he will never tell her everything. She can’t have her live with that kind of pain. Sometimes, he thinks, sometimes you have to hold things back to protect people you love. And that’s okay.

When he tells his mother he’s going to stay in hospital for quite a while, because of his mental health issues, she tells him she’s proud and that he’s going to get out of this stronger for sure. Fitz agrees and listens to her talking about how beautiful the stars are for a while, smiling.

After the phone call, he lays down and closes his eyes, sighing.

Right now, he feels tired. Tired of this life. He knows it’s going to be hard to work through all the trauma, but he also knows it’s going to be worth it.

Because there’s a cottage waiting for him.

A cottage, filled with love.

 

*  


_6 months later_  


Fitz is sitting on a bench in the little parc of the hospital, enjoying the sun on his face.

A lot of people are passing by, laughing and chattering.

He looks out for two certain people and when they finally approach him, a bright smile spreads on his face.

Jemma waves and laughs. She’s holding Eva’s hand whose eyes widen when she discovers Fitz. She lets go of Jemma and runs to him, flying right into his open arms. Fitz laughs and hugs her close, burying his nose in her hair. “Hey little monkey. You grew a bit again, didn’t you,” he murmurs, and she giggles.

She looks up at him, her eyes sparkling, and holds two fingers up. “Two centimetres!”

Fitz whistles and Eva laughs, running off to the swings nearby. She looks happy, Fitz thinks. Good. She deserves all the happiness in the world. He is glad she has started talking not long ago. First, she used only single words. But soon, she connected them back to short sentences. The child therapist is helping, he guesses. As well as Jemma and the team, who are all taking good care of her. Every day. Daisy is even teaching her to control her powers. She told them proudly, that Eva is already able to fly. 

Fitz feels a slight hint of homesickness at the thought of the team. Sometimes he wishes he could join them in the Lighthouse. Sometimes he thinks he’s well enough to do so. But the rational part of him knows, he’s not ready to leave the clinic yet. There are still bad days or nights, filled with panic attacks, breakdowns and depression. Days on which he doesn’t find the energy to get up at all. Nights in which his demons keep him awake for desperate hours, until he has to ask for a sleeping pill.

No. He’s not well yet. Not really. But he’s making progress. He’s certain of that, and that’s a start he guesses.

Jemma sits down beside him on the bench and leans over to kiss him. He closes his eyes and takes his time to inhale her familiar scent and feel her warmth. Oh, he misses her so much.

 “I brought you the sandwich,” she says, and he kisses her again immediately. “You’re the best,” he mumbles. She laughs and hands him the sandwich. He unwraps it with slow, reverent movements.   

While he’s eating, he watches Eva, who swings higher and higher, with a slight smile on her young face. His insides feel warmer at the view.

Jemma strokes his back lightly and eventually she says, “I found it, you know?”

“Really?” He asks surprised.

“Yes. And it’s in Perthshire. Here … I have a picture.” She shows him.

Fitz draws in a deep breath. Yes. That’s it. Their cottage. Grey stones, framed by ivy. Green hills in the background and a bright blue sky. He looks up at Jemma and finds her eyes teary. “It’s beautiful,” he tells her. She nods and presses her face into the crook of his neck.

Eva jumps from the swing with a delighted squeal and runs towards them, hugging both Fitz and Jemma.   

Fitz looks back at the picture, while holding Eva and stroking Jemma’s back. Yes. The cottage already looks like a home.

A home for his little family.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker and always grateful for being corrected! I'm constantly trying to improve my English, so please don't hesitate to tell me about mistakes. <3
> 
> Visit me on tumblr: [ready-to-kick-some-ass](https://ready-to-kick-some-ass.tumblr.com/) :)


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